


By the pricking of my thumbs

by mentosmorii



Category: Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Found Family, Gen, Magic AU, character exploration, there's magic in the og books but u know what i mean
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2020-07-27 02:57:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 39,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20038783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mentosmorii/pseuds/mentosmorii
Summary: es·cha·tol·o·gy/ˌeskəˈtäləjē/nounthe part of theology concerned with death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul and of humankindIn a slightly different world, Artemis discovers magic before that fateful day in Ho Chi Minh City. A magic au.





	1. Chapter 1

In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas / corpora

* * *

Artemis Fowl got the suffix ‘the first’ tacked onto his name at around 3 a.m. on September 1st, 1988. He was in Moscow on business, playing cards in a smoke-wreathed room with various _ Bratva _ members. It wasn’t his fault he wasn’t with his wife — during the last check-up they’d scheduled with a specialist in London, Artemis and Angeline had been informed that their child was likely due after September 10th or so. One also shouldn’t judge him too harshly for the smoking, as he honestly didn’t make a habit of it. He only did it during business. It was part of the necessary pretense, simply another seedy box to check to make sure he wasn’t suspected of being soft.

It was such that Artemis found himself in the dining room of Solomonov Vitaliy Romanovich, an obscenely powerful man who delighted in going by the diminutive ‘Vitya’.

Vitya gestured at one of the footmen to refill his drink, taking a hearty bite out of one of the wild salmon canapés on his china tea plate. Artemis watched him carefully, eyeing the man in the same way one might study a darkened room to confirm through scrutiny the absence of danger, and he set his cards on the table.

“Folding so soon?”

Artemis motioned for the footman from before to pour more sparkling mineral water into his drink flute. Betraying nothing, he met Vitya’s gaze, raising his glass to the mafiya man in a mock toast. Artemis smiled, ignoring the way the Major shifted in his seat further down the table.

The game slowly started back up again, and Artemis leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes. The tobacco in his cigarette had done nothing for him other than cause a brief spike upwards in his heartrate. In the dim, artificial light of the room, after so many hours of work, the chatter around him seemed like it was bleeding in and out of his awareness. Crossing his arms and sighing, he tried to find a comfortable posture on the chair, but it was of no use. He hoped his compatriots would fold soon, but he suspected Vitya would keep the party going on into the noon of the next day — disoriented business partners were docile business partners, after all.

On his right wrist, he felt his ornate watch ticking away. Each thrum of the device felt like the throbbing of a second pulse against his skin. It offered none of the warmth that a more complex machine might emit, only motion.

It was 5 a.m., Moscow Standard Time.

To the West, Angeline Fowl lay in her bed, feeble and pallid. A young Domovoi Butler stood in the door, diligent, as the midwife cooed at the baby. The older woman gently rocked the small child in her arms, and Angeline stared at them, her eyes drooping due to near delirium from exhaustion.

“Is the baby… alright?” Butler asked, his voice low and hesitant.

The nurse blinked. “Hm? Why, of course he is, Mr. Butler.”

Butler nodded his head, and she went back to fussing over the child. The baby blinked, his eyes almost comically large for his tiny frame. He seemed to be looking at Butler in curiosity, uninterested in the nurse’s ministrations. Butler gave the boy a small wave.

He’d read that engaging a child’s senses was beneficial for development.

In response, the child looked away, glancing back at the nurse’s face. The baby had remained mostly silent after the nurses had wrapped him up in a blanket. Butler hadn’t been hoping for a colicky baby, per se, but the quietness of the room unnerved him.

Angeline weakly tried to raise her hand, and Butler straightened, ready to move to her aid if need be.

“Let me see him,” she coughed, voice scratchy.

The nurse holding the baby stepped closer to the bed, bending at the knees so that the baby was close enough for Angeline to see properly. Angeline exhaled, smiling as tears pricked her eyes.

“My baby,” she murmured, and her son looked at her, his dark blue eyes glistening in the darkness. “My son.”

Shooting her a final glance, Butler stepped out into the hall, giving Angeline and her child some privacy. Artemis Fowl needed to be informed that his son had been born.

As he made his way to the Fowl patriarch's study, his ears kept perking up, waiting for a child’s cry or wail to echo from Angeline’s room. It never came, though. The only sound in the manor was his own muffled steps upon the carpet and the quiet chatter of the nurses as they tended to Angeline. Butler ignored the pricking of the hairs on the back of his neck.

Outside, raindrops began to pitter-patter against the roof, creating a gentle rhythm. The sky seemed to sigh, and a young Artemis Fowl II listened, entranced.

* * *

Butler’s worries about the new Fowl heir were unfounded. The boy began to talk without any complications, gurgling out words before when all the books suggested was normal. He was a remarkably precocious child, and although Butler occasionally worried the boy was verging on frailty, he ultimately seemed healthy enough.

In hindsight, he should have realized it would only be so long before his charge grew bored with life within the manor. Artemis Fowl I had made sure the Fowl estate was well stocked with the finest things their fortune could afford: the kitchen had aromatic spices from every inch of the globe; the library was practically bursting with esoteric texts; the walls were adorned with beautiful tapestries and paintings. Artemis Fowl I had beaten the world down so that it fit within the stone walls of Fowl manor, and in theory, his wife and son had to want for nothing. When Angeline had been younger, Butler remembered her leaving on weekend trips to visit her family or friends, but after her son was born, it seemed like she was content to retreat into the beautiful dollhouse her husband had fashioned around her. Perhaps the reality of who her husband was and where she lived had finally sunk in, Butler mused, carrying the tea tray. At least inside she didn’t have to think about the sectarian violence broiling in Northern Ireland, or the heating-up Cold War, or the vile things her adoring husband had done to pay for their life in the manor.

Butler poked his head into the Fowl study, rapping a hand against the door frame. At the desk inside, Artemis Fowl II was curled up in his father’s ornamented leather armchair, nose buried in a book. The boy’s ears perked up at the sound, but he didn’t look up from his reading.

“You weren’t at lunch,” Butler remarked, stepping inside.

“I apologize,” Artemis said, his young voice cold and clipped in a way Butler had never stopped thinking of as strange. “I was busy.”

You’re seven years old, Butler thought, setting the tray down on the mahogany desk. Busy?

“Your mother missed you,” he said instead, and Artemis lowered his book, eyes almost guilty.

“I promise that I will be at dinner.”

“You should eat,” Butler ordered, pushing the tea and toast closer to the boy. Artemis hesitated for a moment, but he finally obliged, taking a small bite out of the portion of the toast with the least amount of jam on it. Artemis chewed thoughtfully, setting the food back down on the plate and pointedly nudging it away. Butler pressed his lips into a thin line. Thank Christ that at least Juliet wasn’t a picky eater.

“May I ask you a question, Butler?”

“Always, Artemis.”

“Where does Father go when he leaves on business?” Artemis inquired, and Butler sighed. He moved the tray on the table, making room for him to rest his weight against the desk.

“He’s on a business trip, Artemis. He’s told you this.”

“Where does he go, though? He won’t tell me what his ‘business’ is.”

Butler shrugged. “Your father told me the same thing.”

Artemis looked at him shrewdly. “I don’t think I believe that, Butler.”

“That’s too bad,” Butler admitted. “Because that’s all I’m going to tell you.”

“You work for me, though,” Artemis argued, brow furrowed. “If you do know more, then you must tell me.”

Frowning, Butler leaned back. “I protect you. I work for your father.”

Sensing that he’d offended, Artemis tried to backpedal. “I… no one will tell me, Butler. Why? I simply want to know more about my father.”

His bodyguard considered Artemis' plea.

“I’m sorry if I seemed dismissive,” Artemis wheedled, prodding further. “I’m… I’m just curious.”

Despite being fully aware Artemis’ apology was motivated more so by ulterior motives than it was by genuine compunctions, Butler softened.

“I know you must miss him,” he relented.

Artemis perked up, sensing he’d succeed in wearing down Butler’s earlier decision.

Butler ignored the voice of Madam Ko in the back of his mind. He wondered if he could absolve himself for a brief moment of weakness surrounding his bodyguard principles.

Artemis was just a boy, Butler thought. And a smart one at that. He doubted that there was a child on earth that could be satisfied with simply artifacts from the outside world.

Reaching to ruffle his charge’s hair, Butler almost smiled at the way Artemis scrunched up his face.

“Why must you and Mother persist in doing that?” Artemis complained.

“Just another grown-up thing, I guess,” Butler ventured, humming good-naturedly when Artemis scoffed.

“What are you reading?” Butler asked after a moment, changing the subject. Artemis glanced back at his book, debating his next course of action. Finally, his excitement surrounding the book he’d been reading won out over his desire to continue pushing Butler regarding his father.

Artemis spun the novel around, allowing Butler to examine it properly. “It’s a collection of short stories by Kenzaburō Ōe. Right now I am on ‘Lavish Are the Dead’.”

Butler nodded, picking up the work and mentally filing the name away. He was nearly positive Artemis fell very short of the intended age demographic.

“What’s it about?”

Artemis’ eyes lit up. “The subject material varies, but the tone is similar between the stories. Ōe’s style is very derivative of French existentialists. I like him more than Sartre and Camus, however.”

“Camus wrote ‘The Stranger’, right?” Butler surmised, looking at Artemis for confirmation. “Read that book during university. I’ve never forgotten the way the author described the old man’s sickly dog. Poor animal,” Butler reproved, tsking.

Artemis nodded. “Yes, that was Camus. ‘Lavish Are the Dead’ is similarly macabre in the service of its philosophy.”

Butler thumbed to the first page of the short story to which Artemis referred. He narrowed his eyes, reading silently. Artemis continued on, unconscious of Butler’s increasingly deepening frown as the man scanned through gruesome paragraph after paragraph.

“I suppose it can be read in many ways. One view would be that it’s a meditation on the forgetting of the Pacific War, despite the violence’s profound impact on the cultural psyche. However, it could also be read as the submerged presence of the Korean War in Japanese society, memory, and culture. I’d argue both critiques come mainly from the perspective of the intellectual establishment, be it that it is both Ōe and the protagonist studied French literature at the University of Tokyo.”

“Artemis,” Butler said slowly, resisting the urge to rub his temples or to throw the offending text from the room. “This is about dead bodies being kept in the medical faculty of a university.”

His charge tilted his head, blinking owlishly. “On a literal, textual sense, I suppose so, yes.”

Butler made a face, putting the book down. “It’s not appropriate for you. It’s… too much. You’re too young to be reading something like this”

“I asked Father. He’s the one who brought it back from Tokyo,” Artemis offered lightly.

Butler floundered, unsure.

To push the matter, Butler would have to either insinuate the Fowl patriarch was so absentminded as to not curate the reading material of his son _ or _ he would have to insinuate that the man had made an incorrect call in judgment. Either would be a challenge to Artemis Sr.’s authority. Either would be making a statement on which of the two had more of a say over Artemis’ behavior. An absentee father or a paid caretaker — Artemis was beginning to test the waters of which of the two men had more of a claim to be the male figure to whom he deferred, Butler realized.

Artemis watched Butler, waiting for a response.

“I see,” Butler noted, being careful to keep his tone even. Artemis’ eyes widened, a motion that would have been nearly imperceptible had Butler not been searching for a reaction on the boy’s face.

The surprise vanished from Artemis quickly, and his eyes narrowed. “Oh?”

Rising, Butler pushed the book back towards Artemis. “Yes. If he approved the book, then I am fine with it.”

“You have no further opinion on the matter?” Artemis pressed.

Butler shrugged. “I’m just your bodyguard. Is my private attitude towards the matter necessary?”

A completely bullshit statement.

Butler knew that.

Artemis knew that.

Hell, it was likely even Artemis Sr. knew that.

Butler blamed Artemis Sr., just a bit. Usually, the Fowls and Butlers were closer in age. As eerily as the young Fowl might present himself, it was hard to not feel parental twinges towards the boy when Butler’s primary duties as a bodyguard were mundane things — things like keeping Artemis from skinning his knees around the house or preparing meals for him and Juliet. The Major and Artemis Sr. were unambiguously boss and bodyguard, but Butler, who had to force himself to not subconsciously categorize both Artemis and Juliet as his kids, and Artemis, who knew his father as a visitor to the house instead of a permanent fixture? Their dynamic was undoubtedly more fraught, unspeakably more complicated to unpack.

But Butler couldn’t bring himself to give words to his failure. To do so would make it irreversible. It’d be the final nail in the coffin he’d fashioned for himself.

So he pushed the tea tray closer to Artemis, quietly getting up to leave.

Disappointed, Artemis moved to pick his book back up, returning to his previous activity.

Pausing in the doorway, Butler turned, faltering.

Artemis didn’t lower the book, but his eyes tracked Butler’s every movement like a hawk. “Yes?”

“Artemis,” Butler began, hand curling around the doorframe with uncharacteristic timidity. “Your father said he’d be home tonight. You can ask him about his trip at dinner.”

“...Will you be joining us?”

“No.”

“I see,” Artemis commented neutrally, fixing Butler with a pointed stare.

Ignoring the way his feelings stung, Butler let his hand fall from the door, turning away.

“Make sure that you eat your lunch, Artemis,” Butler said at last, weary.

“Mhm.”

Both the toast and the tea remained untouched.

* * *

Artemis sat in his chair ramrod straight, taking care not to swing his legs or slouch childishly. Carefully, he looked around the hall he was sitting in. Twinkling, prismatic light from the chandelier's crystals dappled across the cool marble floor, the color muted by the artificial light.

When he’d finally managed to convince Father to bring him along on a business meeting as an eighth birthday present, Artemis had expected to be at least let in the room.

If he strained his ears, he could make out the sound of boisterous laughter and raised voices behind the closed door to his right. However, try as he might, the words themselves evaded him, slipping through his fingers like water. For all he could tell, Father and his business partners were talking about the World Cup. Artemis glanced down the hallway to his left, trying to see if there was anyone else in the palatial London estate. Not even the odd secretary or worker. Rupert Gorman was one of those types, then, Artemis noted, looking back towards the door. Although it was true that not even old money could keep one safe these days. Better a paranoiac than a fool.

The door creaked open, and Artemis jumped at the cacophony of sound that seemed to burst from behind it. A tall but otherwise unassuming man stepped out, closing the door behind him softly. Artemis studied him, taking in the man’s form of attire (reasonably elegant), appearance (haggard), and way of carrying himself (restrained). He looked just a few years shy of Artemis’ father's age, although the chestnut of his hair was already taking on a salt-and-pepper appearance.

The man began walking down the hall, his footfalls every so often falling shakily due to his slight limp. The man soldiered on, a vein throbbing in his neck.

He passed by Artemis, not even looking.

Artemis cocked his head, intrigued. Considering what his father had said about behaving tonight, Artemis weighed his options, finally deciding to feign a cough.

Again, the man did not so much as turn, continuing his slow procession down the hall.

“Would you like an Advil?” Artemis asked.

The man paused. Looking at Artemis, the corner of his mouth quirked upwards slightly.

“I would much appreciate one, thank you.”

Fishing around in the pocket sewn into the inside of his jacket, Artemis presented a tube of the painkiller, holding it out. The man made his way over, swiftly snatching it away. Crunching on a few of the pills and then swallowing them dry, the man gave a small nod of thanks to Artemis.

“It was no trouble,” Artemis reassured him. “I normally wouldn't be so blunt, but I’m afraid that Mr. Gorman has scattered his staff to the wind.”

The man ruminated on the statement, still chewing. “They’re not just on a break?”

Jumping at an opportunity to show off his intellect, Artemis shook his head no. “The employee parking spots aren’t empty, yet the house is completely silent. I’ve not even heard footsteps coming from above or shuffling about in nearby rooms. Gorman is more than happy to show off his wealth and security by hosting, but he’s far too suspicious to allow any of his guests to interact with his workers.”

“Interesting theory,” the man remarked, slyly crossing his arms. “You’ve left something out of your consideration, though.”

Artemis crinkled his nose slightly. “Is that so?”

The man smiled, his teeth bared in the same way a chimpanzee might show off its canines in a challenge. “How do you know I don’t work for Gorman?”

Artemis felt a cold sweat prick at his forehead. “I’m—”

Laughing, the man waved him off. “I’m screwing with you. Rupert’s a worm. I’d never work for the guy.”

Sighing, Artemis leaned back, the effect of the stress lifting making him almost lightheaded.

The man stuck out a hand. “Dmitry Endor.”

Artemis looked at the hand warily, unsure of how to feel about the man’s joking. “Artemis Fowl. The second.”

Endor blinked. “You’re Fowl’s brat?”

Finally, Artemis shook Endor’s hand, nodding. “You’re one of his colleagues, I presume.”

Endor quickly withdrew his hand, reacting as if scalded. Artemis barely had time to note that the man’s hand was usually chill to the touch — clammy, too.

Endor proceeded as if nothing strange had occurred, shoving his hands in his pockets nonchalantly. “So, junior,” he continued. “Your dad brings you along on meetings now?”

“Er...” Artemis hesitated. “Yes?”

Technically, it wasn’t a lie. Just because it was his first time tagging along didn’t matter that much in the end.

“Interesting,” Endor grinned mirthlessly.

Silence fell over the two of them.

“Thank you for the painkillers,” Endor remarked, reaching into his own jacket pocket. Artemis tensed, shooting a glance at the door. Butler might’ve been ordered to stay at home and tend to his mother, but the Major was within shouting distance.

Artemis' fears eased slightly when instead of producing a weapon, Endor simply presented him with a thin, well-worn book. Endor shook it slightly, gesturing for Artemis to take it.

“Take it as a token of my thanks.”

Politely, Artemis took the text from the man, setting it down next to him on the chair. “Thank you, sir.”

“The meeting won’t be over for at least another couple of hours. No pressure to enjoy it, just thought you might want something to do other than count the number of tiles in the hall,” Endor said, shrugging.

Unsure if he should thank him again or if it was better to move on, Artemis opted for staying silent, choosing to instead examine the book. It couldn’t have been more than a few hundred pages, and it was bound in black, India ink-stained paper. Opening it gently, he examined the pages, scanning the smudged text.

A creak sounded to his right, and Artemis flinched, looking back up just in time to see the door to his right close.

Dmitry was nowhere to be seen.

Frowning slightly, Artemis shifted in his seat.

Minutes ticked by, and the door remained closed.

Cautiously, Artemis reopened the book, beginning to read. All the while, he kept his ears trained, ready for when the door creaked open. Eventually, his anxiety ebbed, and he allowed himself to be absorbed in the story, the hours ticking by.

Late into the night when the party had finally slowed to a close, Major and Artemis Fowl Sr. found Artemis leaning against a side of the chair, sleeping peacefully. Neither man thought anything unusual of the book lying closed by his side.

The thrum of people parted around them as Major carefully picked up the Fowl heir. The young boy stirred briefly, but he fell back into a deep slumber after a moment. Artemis Fowl Sr. pocketed the book that had fallen off the chair, pocketing it so as to bring it with them to the hotel.

Moving slowly, the trio made their way out towards the car, the approaching dawn casting a soft light over the car park.

Unbeknownst to his father and the Major, Artemis’ dreams swam with vivid, technicolor images. In the strange hypnogogic state he occupied between sleep and lucidness, he was bombarded by flashes of emotion and form, each new thought passing smoothly through his mind before he could grasp at it to make sense of things. Although on some level he was dimly aware of the feeling of being set down on the leather upholstery of the backseat, he was caught up in a dream-state that felt like a dark, cold body of water where up and down were constantly being confused with one another.

Shifting briefly, Artemis’ brow furrowed. Sleepily, Artemis Sr. carded his fingers through his son’s hair.

The artificial red and white lights of the cars peeling out of the car park streamed through the tinted windows, giving the night an otherworldly feel.

In the back of the car, Artemis dreamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOF okay so! notes/references:
> 
> Each chapter is going to open with an epigraph — a short quotation that's meant to speak to the chapter of book it introduces. 
> 
> In chapter one, I chose, "In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas / corpora" which is Latin for "[my] mind moves [me] to tell [of] forms changed into new bodies". It is from Ovid's 'Metamorpheses", a Latin narrative poem that chronicals the events of history from the creation of the world to the deification of Julius Ceaser in a semi-mythological/historical narrative. As you can probably guess from the title, many of the stories contained within the narrative have to do with how the violence of the gods and mankind can lead to both good and bad people being warped, both literally and figuratively. It's a terribly bleak story that happens to contain most of the examples of Roman mythology that pop culture draws from today. Also, I think some Latin AP courses have you do a capstone project where you translate it from Latin into English?? Essentially, the quote was chosen for the epigraph as a way of introducing that this story is going to be canon-divergent (taking the text and morphing it to a new and unfamiliar form), but it also speaks to some of the themes surrounding transformation and change (magical and figurative) that i'm gonna deal with here!
> 
> "Lavish Are the Dead" is a short story that is a really cool synthesis of french existentialist styles and the author's own creative touches, and it was chosen as a book to be referenced within the text because of the work's philosophy on the way the past can haunt the present, how letting the dead speak for themselves is necessary to fully respect the past, etc. Following in the tradition of French existentialism, it's easy to lose the thread of the themes in the wake of the morbid, descriptive horrors of the text (Butler's comment about the sickly dog from Camus' book 'The Stranger' is the only thing my mum remembers about the book, lol). This work is 100% not gonna be a horror piece bc 1) I do not know how to write the genre and 2) frankly I don't think i'd do a horror piece for af even if i could because it's not appropriate for the series, IMO, but this reference is in service of establishing that Artemis can sometimes glance over real world concerns (e.x. that Butler is concerned the book's subject matter is too macabre for like, a literal 7 year old) due to how he gets caught up in his intellectualization of the content (e.x. the themes, the beauty of the writing style). 
> 
> Finally the most overt reference is the title! It's from Macbeth — right when Macbeth goes to meet the witches at the beginning of the play to find out his future, the witches announce his arrival by saying, "by the pricking of my thumbs/something wicked this way comes" i.e. that Macbeth holds some fantastical and terrible things in his future.
> 
> OH actually nevermind there's one more: Dmitry Endor --> Dmitry= "devoted/dedicated to Demeter" and Endor = in the Old Testament, the Witch of Endor is a woman that a king consulted to summon the spirit of the dead prophet Samuel. It's meant to be a bit *too* fitting, implying that he perhaps chose it himself, trying a new name on as he acclimates to a new era. 
> 
> That's p much all! Next chapter is going to be a time jump going into artemis' emerging abilities, his tutelage w/ Endor, and the tie between humans/mages/the People.


	2. Chapter 2

“He sleeps; but he is awakened; he opens his eyes; behold” 

* * *

Fowl manor was quieter than usual. Angeline took a sip of her earl grey, pulling her jumper around her body a bit tighter. Following a successful business meeting that Artemis had been allowed to tag along on, her husband had been taking their son on more and more trips. Sometimes Butler would go with them, sometimes he would stay back at the manor to watch over Juliet. Angeline wasn’t privy to the exacts of the arrangement the Major and Butler had worked out regarding Artemis’ presence on Fowl business. She didn’t want to know the specifics, truthfully. The more she knew, the worse her anxious spells were. If she were to ask her husband, Angeline was sure she would be allowed to accompany her son on their trips, but she balked at the idea. Her sleep was disturbed enough as it was at home — she was sure her insomnia would be intolerable in some stuffy hotel off in God knows where. Her doctor would probably vote against such a sudden change in her routine if Angeline asked her.

Briefly, Angeline considered calling up her mother. However, it didn’t take long for her to quash that urge. It’d been some time since they’d talked — their last meeting had ended on a sour note after they’d gotten into another spat about Angeline’s husband. They both needed more time to lick their respective wounds.

With her mother out of consideration, Angeline tried to think of someone else. Would it be imposing to ask Butler to break for tea with her? Probably, she decided, frowning. Her stomach clenching, she reached for the television remote. She hit a few buttons, the TV crackling with static despite its relative newness. Settling into her chair, she let the voice of the BBC newscaster wash over her, drowning out the silence of the estate.

* * *

“Again.”

Gritting his teeth, Artemis waved the noxious smoke away from his bowl. At the bottom, a few embers glowed stubbornly. He tipped the entire thing upside down, upending the ashen contents onto the antique table. Reaching for the glass jar of burning attar oil, he carefully transferred a few drops into the mortar bowl he’d been working with. Ideally, this would be the final time he’d have to repeat the recipe. Hesitating, he looked back at Dmitry, who gave no indication of if he had corrected his error from the previous attempt. Pursing his lips, Artemis turned back to his work.

If Artemis had to guess, he’d overdone it with the grapes last time. That, or the wormwood-star anise tincture. Eyes flicking between the various bottles and beakers on the table, Artemis pressed his palms down on the wood, fingers tapping out a frustrated rhythm.

Finally, he looked back at Dmitry, displeasure painting his features.

“Let me look at a recipe.”

Dmitry laughed — a full, hearty laugh, rather than just a chuckle. “Artemis,” he said, eyes crinkling in mirth. “That’s not the point of this lesson.”

_“The_ _point_ — when would I have to demonstrate my understanding of the material without being able to look at my notes?” Artemis insisted, growing increasingly irked.

“The point_, _Artemis,” Dmitry enunciated, waving a hand so that a shadow descended upon certain ingredients on the table, rearranging them as he saw fit. “Is to make it feel natural. Like second nature.”

Artemis was about to argue the point further when a small wooden bowl shot across the table, rattling in place as it suddenly slowed to a halt in front of him.

“Tears of Chios,” Dmitry pointed, and Artemis’ mouth snapped shut. Nodding curtly in thanks, Artemis used one of the serving spoons to apportion out a few droplets of the plant resin. As he tapped the waxy tears off of the utensil, a ringing noise sang out with each instance of contact between the stone bowl and the bronze spoon.

After that direction, the process went smoothly, with Artemis delicately adding the ingredients —sundry herbs, pungent-smelling oils, and gritty powders — here and there. Occasionally, he’d venture a quick glance at Dmitry, trying to see if the man reacted at all to the addition of certain ingredients.

Pausing in his work, Artemis reached for a spice jar, uncorking it to take out a small sliver of bark. He popped it in his mouth, and Dmitry started, alarmed.

“What’re you doing?”

Somewhat pleased he’d managed to destabilize the usually equanimous Dmitry, Artemis raised an eyebrow. “It’s willow bark, is it not?”

“Yes,” Dmitry said, making a face. “Don’t do that again.”

“Its active agent is salicin. It’s a natural pain killer,” Artemis explained, pushing the bottle back to its spot before Dmitry could snatch it out of his grasp with a pointed thought. “The mixture’s smell is giving me a headache. It’s quite strong.”

The answer seemed to mollify Dmitry, who seemed to have forgotten his earlier alarm in favor of the new information he’d stumbled upon. “Salicin?”

“It’s in over the counter painkillers. You can pick it up at any chain-type chemist.”

“Clever,” Dmitry remarked, taking a closer look at the jar. “And it’s...”

“Medicinal,” Artemis affirmed, rolling up his sleeves to use the pestle to grind and mix the ingredients in the mortar. “Completely non-magical.”

Artemis drew his hand back slightly, thinking. “Although, I suppose I don't know for sure. How do you know if something has...”

“Magic or not?”

Artemis nodded. Even a year into working with Dmitry, it still felt a bit… silly to call things magical. Even if he had seen the man work miracles, Artemis couldn’t shake the vague feeling of childishness that came with treating all the rituals and runes so solemnly.

“I’ve already explained this,” Dmitry said, but Artemis could see that the man was already starting to puff up with pride in the way Dmitry always did when he got the chance to revel in his wisdom.

“It’s part of everything. Either you can feel it or you can’t — and even if you do have a knack for sensing magic, you still have to teach yourself to make sense of it. It’s like... another sense that you need to hone in order to really take advantage of,” Dmitry continued, his tone taking on a far-away quality as he reminisced on the matter. “It’s how I knew you could serve as a decent assistant someday.”

It was a barbed compliment, but Artemis had gotten used to Dmitry’s insensitivity.

“It was barely there,” Dmitry added, and Artemis had to stifle the urge to roll his eyes. Juliet had started doing that more frequently, and Artemis was trying not to pick up the habit as well.

“But you had potential. I could see it. You’ve improved since then — if I were to try to get a reading off of you now, the feeling you’d give off would be more refined. Clearer. You just needed a teacher to help coax out the ability,” Dmitry finished, and Artemis nodded along, only half-listening at this point. Dmitry had the tendency to go on tangents when answering questions, always looping around to new ways to applaud himself for being patient, or a good teacher, or a powerful magic-user. Artemis had gotten quite good at picking out the rare valuable statement from a deluge of self-congratulatory bloviating.

By now, Artemis had a rough idea of how magic worked. It seemed like magic was a nebulous type of energy that existed throughout nature, and that the trick was getting it to mirror one’s will. Everything appeared to contain this strange force in different forms — for example, bergamot leaves seemed to be tied to exerting control, as Dmitry had burned it in large amounts when he’d met with Artemis’ father to convince him to drop Artemis off during business meetings. When Artemis had listened in on the Major questioning Father about his decision to leave Artemis under the watch of a colleague no-one particularly knew — to the extent that one would be hard-pressed to come up with an explanation for why Dmitry showed up to meetings in the first place — his father had been equally as flummoxed by this decision as the Major was. Still, Father was determined to stick to his arrangement with Dmitry, regardless of if he fully understood why he’d come to such a confounding solution to a problem that could be solved by simply leaving Artemis at home.

But to the bergamot leaves, it seemed notable that they were tied to control-based magic. Artemis had noticed that Dmitry only leaned on mixtures and incense for certain tasks — perhaps certain types of magic were intuitive to a person, whereas the innate magical properties of certain plants and animals had to be relied upon for magical acts that went beyond someone’s area of expertise. Frankly, the more Artemis learned about the limitations surrounding magic, the more his understanding of the thing became murkier. Maybe one day he’d be like Dmitry — so caught up in the magic that the contradictions seemed to no longer exist.

Holding the stone bowl in both hands, Artemis concentrated. Just like it had done before it had started coughing up black smog earlier, the paste started to smoke, smelling sickly sweet like the roses by the manor in August. The mixture at the bottom of the mortar bubbled, sublimating into a dark vapor that seemed to glimmer. Forcing his hands not to shake, Artemis blew on the smoke. It twirled lazily away in small spirals, wrapping itself around the covered basket near Dmitry. As the smoke sunk into the cloth covering, Artemis waited.

The seconds ticked by arduously.

Ever so slightly, the cloth began to twitch. Dmitry reached out carefully, pulling the covering back with a flourish.

Inside, the skeleton of a mouse perked up, with the area where its nose would have been bobbing up and down in curiosity as it regarded Artemis and Dmitry.

Artemis glanced at Dmitry, who gave a small bow of his head in permission. Outstretching a hand, Artemis gestured for the animal to come closer. He didn’t have to wait long, for the creature crawled out of the basket, scampering over. He forced himself not to recoil as it clambered onto his open palm.

It let out an odd squeak, and Artemis felt a peal of laughter bubble up within him, surprised.

“Good job.”

Dmitry smiled, and the mouse scurried back into the basket. The cloth’s shadow pulled at it, moving the fabric back over the basket.

Artemis grinned back, suddenly woozy. Shaking his head, he felt a wetness under his nose. Confused, he brought a hand to his face. He drew his fingers back, blood covering the digits.

Dmitry seemed unfazed, as he simply passed Artemis a neatly folded handkerchief. Pressing it to his nose, Artemis sat down shakily on one of the many stools that bordered the table.

“That’s to be expected,” Dmitry explained, his tone unusually kind. “You’ll become less strained with further practice.”

Not wanting to seem unnerved, Artemis remained silent, tilting his head forward slightly in order to keep his bloody nose from worsening.

“Do… you have any water?” Artemis tried, trying to sort out his thoughts.

Dmitry waved a hand, and a jug poured water into a small, wooden bowl, with the bowl itself sliding over to Artemis after a moment.

Using his free hand, Artemis picked it up, drinking deeply. The two of them sat there, quiet. Finally, Artemis drew the handkerchief back, reasonably confident that the bleeding had slowed to a stop. Expectantly, Dmitry waited for a further response.

Taking a deep breath, Artemis steadied himself.

“I want to try again,” he announced.

Dmitry grinned, the motion showing off his canines. “Good.”

* * *

Domovoi Butler gently ran the brush through his sister’s hair, his movements easily accommodating the sudden jerks and turns of her head as she nervously watched the wrestling match on TV. She’d been talking about this match for the past week, and Butler had told her he’d help her do her hair into a French braid to match one of the women competing tonight. Juliet had decided that the matching hairstyle would be lucky, and Butler was more than happy to indulge her. Any moment he got to spend with Juliet was precious to him, and Butler hoped that there wouldn’t come a day when she decided their family nights were ‘uncool’, as she’d recently taken to calling things. He didn’t think Juliet would genuinely end up having a cynical teenager phase — she was too full of excitement and sincerity to act fashionably detached from her interests.

Still, he worried.

Artemis, who, in fairness, was a fairly reserved child, had been withdrawing.

Butler wasn’t sure what had caused the change, and he was left adrift, unsure of how to reverse the weakening of their bond. It wasn’t just with him, either. Butler had noticed Artemis becoming increasingly distracted around his mother and father as well.

Butler ignored the whispering voice at the back of his mind that pointed out, perhaps a tad unkindly, that Artemis had always been a bit distant from his parents, whereas his aloofness with Butler was new.

Ignoring the twinge in his stomach, Butler gently started to braid Juliet’s hair, the TV serving as white noise as he allowed himself to get lost in his task. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> skdhfkf im gonna go back and fix some brief typos in chap 1 BUT here's the second chapter. The quote selected is a Mary Shelley quote! It's in reference to a nightmare she had that served as inspiration for her book 'Frankenstein'. Bringing in those sweet sweet themes surrounding life and death & the ethics surrounding control over them.


	3. Chapter 3

"Where are the men?" the little prince at last took up the conversation again. "It is a little lonely in the desert..."

"It is also lonely among men," the snake said.

The little prince gazed at him for a long time.

"You are a funny animal," he said at last. "You are no thicker than a finger..."

"But I am more powerful than the finger of a king," said the snake.

The little prince smiled.

"You are not very powerful. You haven't even any feet. You cannot even travel..."

"I can carry you farther than any ship could take you," said the snake.

He twined himself around the little prince's ankle, like a golden bracelet.

"Whomever I touch, I send back to the earth from whence he came," the snake spoke again. "But you are innocent and true, and you come from a star..."

The little prince made no reply.

"You move me to pity−− you are so weak on this Earth made of granite," the snake said. "I can help you, someday, if you grow too homesick for your own planet. I can−−"

"Oh! I understand you very well," said the little prince. "But why do you always speak in riddles?"

"I solve them all," said the snake.

And they were both silent.

* * *

There are different kinds of silence.

Fowl Manor in the morning was like a sleeping giant, and Butler had come to enjoy the restfulness that seemed to linger in the air when he would prowl the halls during his morning patrol. Every morning, he would rise at around 5 a.m. and check the security of the manor — he'd gone through this routine thousands of times, and he was almost sad to feel the house start to wake up, signaling the end of the peaceful quiet.

This wasn't to say that the house became wild and unruly once the occupants rose, rather, it stayed quiet in a deliberate, stern way that Butler disliked immensely. He'd not minded the dreariness of the home in his youth, but with Juliet and Artemis around the manor…

Butler frowned.

A house with children in it should be teeming with life. The manor felt more like a historical site than it did a home. With Angeline retreating into the safety of her bedroom, to the increasingly unavailable Artemis Sr. and the Major, Butler wondered if the wing of the manor he shared with Juliet was the only living part of the house. Physically, the entire house was beautiful and well-maintained, but there was something about the estate that felt decayed. Ruined. Butler wouldn't go as far as to say he believed that something like a house could have a soul, but there was something about the manor that seemed contradictory: a piece of parallax architecture that was concurrently beguiling and rancid, depending on the angle at which one looked at it.

As he moved slowly and quietly through the hall, Butler tried not to think too deeply about the Fowls. It'd only serve to make him more cynical, and he refused to dwell on such matters until he was in his bed at night. To ruin a morning was to spoil the rest of the hours in the day, and Butler was not a man who could indulge in bitterness.

By now, he'd nearly completed his rounds. Through the veiled windows, he could see the soft bluish-grey of the spring morning. Butler smiled slightly. If it remained pleasant out, perhaps he would take Juliet down by the lake. In the warmer months, the water tended to be the temperature of bathwater by late-afternoon. He had many fond memories of teaching her to swim in the secluded, small pool of water that was tucked neatly away into the forest by the manor.

Tearing his eyes away from the window, Butler started to make his way back to his room. He'd walked these halls so many times that he knew where to step to prevent the floor from creaking in protest, and his mind wandered as he turned through the maze-like halls and corridors. However, he felt a prodding in the back of his mind, as though something was disturbing the backdrop of his morning. Pausing, he surveyed the room, his eyes lingering on the curves and edges of its structure.

Behind him, he heard a shifting sound, like fabric sliding past fabric. Dropping his hand to his holster, Butler turned.

Almost instantly, his hand flinched away from the weapon.

Butler inhaled in surprise, but then cut himself off half-way through the breath, not wanting to startle his sleeping charge.

The boy was curled up awkwardly on the chaise lounge, the antique rococo daybed's firm cushions refusing to give or conform to the weight upon it.

Carefully, Butler reached out to brush a stray strand of hair from Artemis' face. His charge stirred, scrunching up his face.

Artemis must've gotten home with the Major and his father late last night. They'd been gone on business for the past few weeks — he wasn't sure if he was seeing things in the dim morning light, but Butler could almost swear that his charge had shot up a full centimeter or two in the time since he'd been gone.

As Butler drew his hand away, he saw Artemis blearily begin to shutter his eyes open and shut, attempting to blink the sleep out of his eyes. Butler froze, waiting for his charge to sink back into a slumber, but the boy rubbed at his face, yawning.

"Artemis?" he said, voice barely above a whisper. Artemis nodded, tired, pulling his hand away from his eyes. "What're you doing all the way out here?"

"We returned late. Past midnight," Artemis mumbled, stretching.

"You should be in bed."

Artemis cocked his head, curious. "It is the 17th, yes?"

Furrowing his brow, Butler nodded slowly, when suddenly realization dawned on him. "You—"

Artemis smiled, satisfied, closing his eyes again. "Happy birthday, Butler."

"I… thank you."

They both fell silent, the only sound being the distant creaking of the house.

Butler watched his charge, a warm feeling curling around his gut. Gingerly, he scooped him up, and Artemis allowed himself to be lifted without protest.

"I brought you back a present from Belgium," Artemis said, his tone slurring from exhaustion. "'S a book. Card, too."

Trying not to jostle the boy as he moved, Butler hummed in response, the sound low and rumbling in his chest. Artemis sighed, going lax in his arms.

"You can show me in the morning. Or afternoon, if that's when you wake up," Butler promised, and Artemis nodded.

It was tricky getting a door open while carrying someone in one's arms, but somehow Butler managed. The light from the sunrise filtered into Artemis' room, dappling against the four-poster bed inside. Unlike Angeline's shrouded bed, the one here had the canopy tied neatly to each of the bedposts, thus making it easier for Butler to gently set Artemis down upon the duvet. Clumsily, Artemis crawled under the sheets.

"Do you need anything before I go?" Butler asked, smoothing out some of the wrinkles on the sheets.

Artemis snorted at that, cracking open a single eye to look at his bodyguard. "I'm not a _child_. I'm sure I will manage to drift off without you reading me a story or something similarly foolish."

Butler brushed the hair out of Artemis' eyes, and Artemis only half-heartedly scowled at the gesture. Butler smiled, the lines under his eyes crinkling. Artemis would have to be almost asleep to permit any sort of behavior he perceived as 'coddling' him.

"Juliet asked how your trips off with your father have been going," Butler remarked, changing the topic.

Artemis went still.

Butler frowned, unsure.

"They've been insightful," Artemis offered guardedly, leaving things at that. "Why?"

Ignoring his mounting feeling of unease, Butler kept his tone light. "She likes spending time with you. It's hard having one of her friends and her uncle off all the time."

His hackles lowering somewhat, Artemis sunk uncertainly back into his pillow. "Oh. I see."

"Would you tell Juliet that I consider her a friend as well?" Artemis said finally, turning on his side to look at Butler better. "I would be remiss to leave her uncertain regarding my view of her."

"I'm sure she'd love to hear you tell her yourself. Again, that's a matter for when you wake up."

Artemis' grip curled around the duvet. "Of course."

"Go to bed, Artemis," Butler said, voice gentle. He moved to rise.

"Stay?"

Butler forced his expression to remain neutral.

"Always. Always, Artemis—"

"Just until I go to sleep," Artemis amended, and even in the dark, Butler could see that his ears had flushed scarlet in embarrassment.

"Of course."

Settling in, Butler sat there in the dark, thoughts twisting and swirling around his head as he waited.

Outside, the world began to wake.

* * *

Dmitry scowled at the letter in front of him, and every movement of his eyes moving down the page felt like the irritated flick of a cat's tail. Artemis spared him a brief, derisive glance before going back to his own work, tapping away at his computer.

Dmitry made a discontented noise at the back of his throat, and Artemis began hitting the keys a little bit louder, keeping his eyes locked on his screen.

Dmitry discarded the letter, tossing it aside.

Running his tongue over his teeth in an effort to keep from snapping, Artemis exhaled through his nose.

"Artemis," Dmitry announced. "We never get any pleasant letters. Have you noticed?"

"I _have_ noticed. I wonder if that has something to do with your charming disposition, Dmitry," Artemis intoned, pointedly hitting another key.

In the nearly two years he'd been apprenticing under Dmitry, Artemis had come to a few conclusions.

Firstly, Dmitry was old. Older than any living human being on the planet by many, many centuries.

However, he was fundamentally a child — he was angry like a child, sad like one, and happy like one. Taking Artemis on as an apprentice when they'd met in London had been a whim in the same way a child might coo over a new toy they'd spotted in a shop window, and Artemis had stuck with him by virtue of his ability to remain intriguing. Artemis had only just turned ten, and he was already in a position where he spent most of his jaunts over to Dmitry's estate practically serving as a watchful father to this man so many years his senior. Every time he would visit Dmitry, Artemis would bring a new piece of the outside world with him — currently, Artemis was trying to get his computer to work correctly in Dmitry's presence, as although the man was fascinated by the idea of the internet, electrical appliances seemed to go haywire around him. He'd had mixed success thus far.

Secondly, there were other people like Dmitry out there.

Similarly, they seemed to exist on the periphery of the world, interacting only with one another, and even then, through indirect means. They had their own history, had waged their own wars, and had lived and died hidden lives, blissfully unaware of the fact that humanity had placed a man on the moon or that the power of the atom had been harnessed. They had their own hierarchies — Dmitry was clearly located somewhere on the top of it. They had their own politics — Artemis was unable to understand the intricacies of some of Dmitry's beliefs, but he could gather the man was a zealot in some fashion. They had their own laws — Dmitry had broken many inviolate ones, which explained why he seemed to cloak himself from his people's oversight in the messiness of human crime rings. They had their own community — and Dmitry seemed to be _loathed_ within it.

Finally, something seemed to be brewing on the horizon of magical society.

When Artemis would check for mail on the estate's grounds, he'd find more and more letters, thicker and thicker packages. Irrespective of the escalating mail's implications, this was Artemis' least favorite job around the manor. The mansion didn't have a set location, a fact that, although helpful in the context of Artemis and Dmitry's arrangement, was a bit of a bother when Artemis would arrive during each new trip, unable to get his proper bearings until it was almost time to leave. But to return to the issue of the mail, the post was Artemis' only way of gauging the status of the strange world from which Dmitry came — no one ever came to call. It was just brown boxes, manila envelopes, and smart, yellow slips. They piled up in the gardens; came tumbling down the chimney; spilled out from the gutters (if the house was in the mood for a more modern roof). Artemis never opened a single one.

Artemis was jostled from his thoughts when Dmitry sighed again.

"It's like you don't even listen to me anymore, Artemis."

Artemis blinked. He'd been unaware that Dmitry had continued to talk.

"Tell me, are you this rude at home? Is this a 'teen' thing?" Dmitry continued, resting his chin on his hand in lazy curiosity.

"I'm not going to be a teenager for a little over another three years," he remarked, sidestepping the question about his home life. As much as Artemis was determined to continue with his plan to drain every last bit of knowledge about magic from Dmitry, he understood acutely the sort of danger Dmitry posed — as long as the arrangement stood, Artemis was determined to keep Dmitry far, far away from Fowl manor.

"Ahead of the curve again, then," Dmitry muttered, picking the discarded letter back up in annoyance. He snapped his fingers, attempting to startle Artemis out of his engrossed state of work.

"Arty. Business. Focus."

Artemis pursed his lips, shutting his computer. "If I'm ahead of the curve, then it must be because I have such an exemplary teacher."

"Hm?"

"Never mind," Artemis said, ignoring the nascent stress migraine beginning to prod at him. "What is so _achingly_ important in the letter you've got, Dmitry? You've been just about bursting to complain about whoever — or whatever — is the matter since you opened it."

"Council business," Dmitry said resolutely, expression dark. He paused, leaning back after a beat. "Have we gone over—"

"Yes."

They hadn't, but Artemis was determined to hasten through the conversation in order to return to his tinkering with the computer.

"Wonderful," Dmitry replied, his smile widening by a few molars. "Council business is council business. They're displeased about something or other again, and they're determined to make that my problem."

"Dmitry, are they displeased about having a problem and wish to invoke your..." Artemis trailed off, giving the man a grimace. "Services, or are you the problem?"

Dmitry shot a glance back at the letter. "Services, most likely."

"Dmitry."

"I was joking! I've read the letter over at least a dozen times. I know damn well what nonsense they're trying to bully me into fixing for them. Again," the man stressed, tone snide.

"Don't treat me like a fool, Artemis," Dmitry added as an afterthought, voice cool.

Artemis nodded curtly, but didn't take any further action. He'd be mindful to try to keep from offending Dmitry when he didn't think he could get away with it, but Artemis refused to give him deference or fear.

The room still somewhat tense, Dmitry moved on, the slight no longer of interest to him.

"I don't have time to deal with their mess, but I'm obligated nonetheless," he continued, and Artemis allowed himself to exhale the breath he'd been holding.

"Should I send a letter out to one of your business partners?" Artemis tried.

Dmitry's brow furrowed. "Since when are you sending letters out to my allies?"

Making a face, Artemis pulled his lips into a thin line. "I'm not. I'm talking about the… human ones."

His teacher's mouth made an 'O' in comprehension. "They wouldn't be of any use in this case."

Calling people humans still felt strange in Artemis' mouth. He wasn't fully sure what he was at this point. Dmitry was fell neatly in the category of 'not-human' — Artemis had no trouble identifying him as something similar but distinct from humanity.

The rest of Artemis' world was human, though.

Was magic enough to change how one was classified on a species level? Was Dmitry different from humans because he'd only been raised around magic users? Was there a meaningful distinction to be made between who Artemis was before he'd met Dmitry and who he was now?

Dmitry regarded Artemis carefully, and Artemis was stricken by the strange worry he'd been having more frequently: that Dmitry could somehow see each of the thoughts tumbling around Artemis' skull.

"Artemis, could you do me a favor?"

Artemis tilted his head, fingers curling around his closed laptop. "It depends on what the favor is."

"It's more of an errand, really," Dmitry explained. "One of my government friends is… concerned about a group of humans."

Utterly vague. Artemis frowned.

"What sort of group?"

He got a dismissive hand wave in response. "A few rich pricks who're determined to act like Victorian occultists, apparently. The council wants to make sure they've not stumbled upon anything legitimate — which is where you come in. I have a poor grasp on what passes for a 'normal' human amount of knowledge regarding magic, but you've lived both walks of life."

Slightly more information, then. Still, Artemis was uneasy with the entire business.

"I'd have to disagree with your assertion that I have a better grasp on what constitutes the sum of the average per— _human's_ knowledge about magic," he corrected himself.

Dmitry steepled his fingers. "Artemis."

Artemis resisted the urge to rub his temples.

"I was trying to manipulate you via flattery into voluntarily taking this job. I can see that that did not work, but I did try."

Idly, Artemis wondered if there was enough time before dinner and when he was going to return to his hotel to lock himself into the bedroom and scream into a pillow for a good hour. He'd never had the urge to do so before, but he suspected it would be immensely cathartic.

"The bottom line here is this: I don't have time to be chasing after every shadow menacing the Council. I'm busy. _We're_ busy, but frankly I have more use for you in getting them to stop darkening my doorstep than I do in teaching you parlor tricks while I wait for certain things to be set into motion."

Still, Artemis conceded. Perhaps catharsis would have to wait. The last thing he needed was the Major or, God forbid, his father getting concerned about his well being. To put up with Dmitry for years, only to suddenly be forced to cut his plans short — thus achieving none of his goals while still having been subjected to the man's presence? Hellish. Unthinkable.

"Essentially: you're going."

Artemis scowled, but he nodded anyway. He had no other option.

He'd been presented with another indignity that simply had to be endured in the service of his more pressing goals.

Dmitry grinned, going back to opening letters in the candlelight.

Artemis opened his computer, going back to tapping away at the device.

It'd all be worth it.

* * *

Down in an office at the center of the Earth, Foaly let out a troubled flick of his tail, leafing through the file he'd thrown together.

What he had was… messy. An elegant suspicion that made sense of some of the weirdness his surveillance programs had been spitting out at him.

What he had was phone calls from a network of seemingly connected humans, all of which seemed to trip off the word sensors he'd developed at least once or twice a month. Never at the same time of the month, and never enough to push the calls into the territory of definitively pointing towards an awareness of the People. Every isolated piece of evidence he had wasn't enough to cause alarm.

But here's the thing: he had an entire _dossier_ of these weird blips. They clearly weren't isolated incidents — but that was all Foaly knew. It was easy enough to point at the file he had and draw the conclusion that something fishy was going on above ground, but he didn't know _what._ Again, each of the calls and emails stopped short of saying something as clear-cut as "let's try to catch a fairy" or "I think a secret society of magic users living on the planet".

It was like that human news article he'd read on governmental surveillance. Nowadays, a human in America could send an email that said something completely innocuous, but the email would have enough keywords to get caught up in an NSA net trawl. This inelegant system gave a lot of false positives, a fact that left the agency with quite a bit of junk to wade through — at least based on what Foaly had seen the last time he'd taken a peek. Foaly had the sneaking suspicion that the people he'd been tracking were trying to game that type of system, as there was a veneer of plausible deniability surrounding just what _exactly_ these humans were talking about in the calls.

He knew what Julius would probably say: that he needed to come back when he had some real proof. Alternatively, there was another scenario Foaly could see playing out — that the commander would order a LEP team investigation and crackdown on the humans on the list, which was not what Foaly wanted at this stage. It wasn't the time to go in, guns blazing, and risk disturbing a very delicate situation. If there really were humans aware of the People's existence, then the problem needed to be eradicated by pulling out the root, not just by attacking the vines. Right now Foaly had a list of humans thought to be involved in the conspiracy; what he didn't have was a feel for the breadth of the group's reach, if his suspicions ended up being correct.

Foaly would have to be very careful in how he told Julius about what he had in this file.

For as much as he would revel in finally being vindicated, in finally proving he wasn't just some paranoid crackpot, his brief triumph would be far outweighed by the crushing prospect of a world in which humans had turned their watchful eyes to the one place the People had left to hide.

Setting the folder aside for the moment, the centaur reached for his boxed lunch he'd shoved to a side on his disorderly desk. He stabbed at his synth-salad, munching thoughtfully.

Sometimes he wondered if his coworkers appreciated just how stressful his job was, what with the fate of the free world weighing on his shoulders. Frankly, he didn't get half as much respect as he was owed. Hell, last week someone had stolen his cold sandwich from the employee fridge, the animals. No respect. He'd never do that to another fairy's property — to be forced to have to resort to vending machine food at the LEP was to put your soul in an irreparably dark place. Earlier that month, Foaly had seen Trouble cursing at the machine, arm reaching up inside it to get the precariously hanging bag of trail mix the machine had failed to spit out after it took his money. The look in Kelp's eyes had been miserable resignation. Foaly had pretended to tip an invisible hat to his coworker in solemn solidarity, but Trouble had thought that he'd been making a joke about the elf's imported cowboy-style boots. The reaction had been… unfavorable. As a result, Foaly had been forced to scratch Trouble off the list of potential candidates for his after-work board game group he was trying to throw together.

C'est la vie, Foaly sighed, going back to the work that had actually been assigned to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chap had a fair amount of time skips, but i hope it flowed in a way that made sense/sounded okay? This chapter's epigraph is from... Le Petit Prince/the little prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry! It's a modern fable about a little prince who is traveling the universe in search of wisdom — back on his tiny planet, he has a little rose in which he is in love with, but because they are both too immature to love each other properly (he does not understand her and she is selfish), he decides to leave. Out in the galaxy, he travels to many planets each featuring a grown-up who has been reduced to a function. He finds each of them foolish (for example, one is a king who rules over a planet in which he is the sole inhabitant, one is a geographer who refuses to actually travel his planet to see the places he records, and one is a businessman who claims to own the stars and spends all his days counting them), and he leaves the planet behind each time. However, he learns from the geographer that there are roses on Earth, so he decides to journey there. Meanwhile, there is a pilot on Earth who has crashed into the sahara desert, all alone. He befriends the pilot, but the prince also meets the snake, who claims that he can help the little prince get back to his planet — the snake says that the prince's planet is too far away and that the prince is too weak to return, but if the snake bites him, then the prince can leave his body and fly back home, unencumbered. Ultimately, the prince asks the snake to bite him, and the pilot returns home, determined to believe his small friend is in the stars, flying home to his rose. The scene from above is when the prince first meets the snake — my thought process behind it was that in many ways, I want Dmitry to come across as a similar figure to the snake. He's dangerous, but can he serve a purpose? Is the prince truly out in the stars, finally reunited with his flower? Or is that merely the wishful thinking of the pilot, who misses his strange, magical companion?
> 
> In the next chap, we'll get into a bit of the group both Dmitry and Foaly have been tracking (though they are unaware of one another's existence), meet the Council, and we approach the September of 1998 — the maiden voyage of the Fowl Star.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who has stuck with the story, and any reviews, predictions, or bits of feedback are appreciated! Hope everyone's August is going well :)!


	4. Chapter 4

If we shadows have offended,

Think but this, and all is mended,

That you have but slumber'd here

While these visions did appear.

And this weak and idle theme,

No more yielding but a dream,

Gentles, do not reprehend:

if you pardon, we will mend:

And, as I am an honest Puck,

If we have unearned luck

Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,

We will make amends ere long;

Else the Puck a liar call;

So, good night unto you all.

Give me your hands, if we be friends,

And Robin shall restore amends.

* * *

Mulch was waiting for his luck to change.

The cell wall across from him seemed to stare back at him, unflinching.

It’d all started when he’d failed to hawk the Jules Rimet Cup to that undercover LEP operative. Following that bungle, he’d spent the past years in and out of prison, with his bouts of freedom being increasingly shorter and his bouts in jail stretching on longer and longer.

On the bright side, he mused. He didn’t have to worry about old Julius throwing him in the clink again. And the cell he was currently in was roomier than any he’d been in before — which made sense, considering it was human-made.

The wall he was staring at refused to comment on his rumination.

“You know,” he said aloud, shifting on the cold floor. “I can admit, in hindsight, that I probably shouldn’t have broken into that businessman’s condo. Guy was clearly a nutter. Still, can I be blamed for not—”

“Hello,” a voice spoke softly in the dark.

Turning his head to follow the sound, Mulch saw a small, pale face pressed up to the bars on his cell’s window.

It took all his will (and some of the calmness lent to him by the tranquilizer in his system) to not shriek.

Mulch scrambled, pressing himself up against the far wall, providing as much distance as possible between himself and this figure. The pain in his head throbbed dully, but he ignored the sensation, his heartbeat pounding in his ears.

“I’m afraid I’m busy right now,” he forced out, chuckling a tad nervously. “In the middle of a conversation, as y’can see.”

Mulch’s vision was still foggy, but he could see the person at the window peer into the cell.

“I’m the only person with whom you’re holding a conversation,” the figure announced, looking back at Mulch. “I believe you might be hallucinating.”

Nerves shot, Mulch almost tittered. Great; so the human they’d sent to check up on him had no sense of humor. His day was getting better and better.

“I’ve come to free you,” the person said, and as Mulch’s eyes steadied, he could just about make out that he was speaking to a young child. “I do hope you’re not injured, as I do not trust myself to be able to carry you out of here.”

“Oh,” Mulch said warily, trying to see past the kid. “That’s nice.”

“Niceness has nothing really to do with it,” the boy murmured absentmindedly, his attention shifting towards inspecting the cell. “Business is business.”

“Way to make a guy feel special,” Mulch grumbled, some of his earlier stress bleeding away.

The tiny figure watched him, equal parts amused and slightly off-put by Mulch.

“Name’s… Doc,” Mulch offered. “And I’d shake your hand were I, y’know.”

Mulch held up his hands, the cuffs jingling at the movement.

“I don’t think Doc is your real name,” the figure remarked lightly, fingers curling around the bars over the window. “But as I’d prefer not to give you my real name either, I suppose I’m not one to talk.”

Mulch sighed, the noise echoing in the dingy cell. “Kid, you look about ten. Would it have been so hard to give me a ‘what’s up, Doc’?”

Ignoring the dwarf’s comment, the boy cocked his head. “What a joker you are. Well, Doc, I’ll offer you a name for me as well: Baud.”

“Bowed?”

Although Mulch’s vision was still blurry, he could see the kid make a face. “Baud. Baudrillard. Author of Simulacra and Simulation—”

“Yeah, you’re gonna have to pick a new fake name,” Mulch interrupted, waving him off. “The name thing is a mutually-assured security thing, not an opportunity to get all hoity-toity. New name time: go.”

“Archimedes.”

“Bzzt. Wrong again. No.”

“… Pallas?”

Mulch let the name roll around his brain a bit, pretending to consider it. Frankly, he was just going to keep things simple and refer to the boy as ‘kid’, if and when he had to use a name at all. Finally, he gave a half-hearted shrug, and the boy outside grinned, triumphant. “It’ll do.”

No sooner had he given his assent did the door to his cell creak open. Mulch shook his head, trying to clear away some of the fuzziness. The kid waited at the window, watching. As far as Mulch could tell, there was no one else out in the hall.

The space in the doorway remained there, empty and foreboding.

“Is there anyone else like you here?” the boy asked, watching Mulch as the dwarf struggled to get to his feet.

“Like me?” Mulch questioned, wrinkling his nose. “What do you mean?”

It was the boy’s turn to shrug, looping his fingers together behind his back nonchalantly. He said nothing, enjoying Mulch’s unease in the silence.

Out of the mineshaft and right into the cave-in, Mulch surmised, his feeling of defeat from earlier settling back in. Stay with his human captors or take his chances with this kid, who, frankly, Mulch trusted only a marginal amount more. The preservation of thousands of years safely tucked away from humanity had roughly the same odds as a coin toss, if Mulch had to take his bets.

“Are you going to go about making more jokes? It seems as though your biting wit has disappeared.”

The comment cut through Mulch’s thoughts like a hot poker disturbing the dying embers in a hearth, startling him back to attention.

“No,” Mulch said finally, carefully crossing the boundary between his cell and the hall. “I’m fine.”

The boy smiled at that, but the expression held a bite to it. “Wonderful. I must ask again, though: are you the only one here?”

For a brief moment, Mulch considered blowing off the question again.

But he didn’t.

For better or worse, the boy in front of him was his only shot at getting out. The LEP didn’t know where he was, and therefore they certainly weren’t coming after him; his allies weren’t going to risk their hide breaking him free; he found it unlikely that these strange humans would let him leave. He knew when to bluff and when to fold. To give up some of the People’s secrets to this kid who already seemed privy to their business was worth it if it meant Mulch wasn’t going to be responsible for all of humankind being keyed into  _ the _ Secret: the People’s existence.

“Yeah, I’m the only one,” Mulch admitted. “They’ve got tons of animals stored around the office, but I’m the only one like me.”

“That’s all I needed to know,” the boy promised, holding up a hand in an imitation of the scout gesture. As he did so, Mulch felt the pins in his handcuffs tumble strangely, the internal mechanisms of the lock moving awkwardly. The cuffs fell from his wrists, and for a moment all he could do was gawk at them. Uncertainly, he reached for them.

“You’re welcome,” the boy said, clearly pleased with himself.

Drawing his hand away from the cuffs on the ground, Mulch rubbed at his wrists instead, thinking. He could reflect upon...  _ that _ with the therapist they had at Haven Penitentiary the next time he got caught by Julius. The main goal was to just get out of this goddamn building.

“I figured that you were the only one here,” the boy continued, speaking more to himself than to Mulch. “They only had a file on you, after all.”

Mulch looked up sharply. “File?”

The boy waved him off. “I’ve already scrubbed all their records, digital and physical. I suppose they might have some off-site, but I assume those notes aren’t enough to prove anything about magic—”

“Magic?” Mulch stressed, the strands of his beard at alert. Dwarven intuition — he’d been around the block enough times to know when to listen to it.

“— although those records will soon be dealt with as well, if everything goes smoothly,” the boy was prattling on at this point, but he started at Mulch’s interjection, blinking. “… Yes?”

Suddenly, the boy looked guilty, his stance a little more unsure. “They haven’t been… keeping you here since birth or anything, yes? You _ do _ know what magic is—”

Mulch blanched, holding up his hands to slow the boy down. “What? No. I got here about a week ago.”

He ignored the needling voice at the back of his head that pointed out that really, he  _ didn’t _ know how long he’d been here.

Rubbing the bridge of his nose, Mulch took a deep breath, steadying himself. “What I mean to say,” he began. “Is how do you know about… it.”

“Magic?”

Mulch tried not to wince. God, he hated this conversation. Once he got out of here, he wasn’t coming aboveground for at least another decade.

“Yes,” Mulch grit out. “You’re not with the humans running the show here, so…? Enlighten me, kid.”

The more the drowsiness from the tranquilizer wore off, the more Mulch could see with clarity how utterly screwed the whole situation was. A better question for him to have asked would have just been:  _ how and why are you here? _ Mulch was shite with guessing how old humans were, but he could tell this one was young. Why he was playing hostage search-and-rescue was beyond Mulch. If anything, the only reason he didn’t suspect that the kid was a plant sent by his captors, a tool designed to get more information out of Mulch, was because it didn’t even make sense from _ their  _ perspective to send a child to play mind games.

“Magic,” the boy simply responded, and Mulch’s frown deepened. Before Mulch could press further, the boy snapped his fingers and the door to Mulch’s cell swung closed.

For a moment, all Mulch did was stare at his empty cell. Then, letting out a low, impressed whistle, he turned back to the boy.

“We’re gonna get out of here,” Mulch decided. “And after tonight, we’re never going to talk to each other ever again.”

The boy nodded, disinterested by now in Mulch. “If you’d like.”

* * *

The cool air on Mulch’s face felt like heaven. He inhaled deeply, tasting the night breeze on his tongue. Above him, the stars dotted the sky, and all around him, Mulch could hear the low chattering of birds and insects. Being able to sense the status of the world around him — to feel the dampness of forming dew, to hear the roaring of cars in the distance, to perceive the chill of the natural darkness — was a luxury he had missed. Sure, he’d spent countless days in LEP prisons or holding cells, but these past few days had felt different. Suffocating. He wasn’t one to linger on such thoughts, though, so Mulch instead took another breath, enjoying the way the wind tickled his beard.

He was in Ireland.

Well, he conceded, he was in an alleyway right now. Details, details.

Nearby, footsteps fell upon the concrete, and Mulch pulled back into the shadows. He had no shield to rely on, but the darkness would serve him just as well, considering the poor quality of human night vision.

“It’s me.”

Mulch rolled his eyes, the voice familiar. “Hello, me.”

The boy was carrying a plastic grocery bag from the Aldi whose alley Mulch was currently lurking in. Dropping the bag in front of Mulch, the boy reached into his pocket for a cell phone.

Picking up the bag in one fell swoop, Mulch began rifling through its contents. With a victorious grin, he pulled out a tinfoil-wrapped hot sandwich. Tearing into its wrapping, he wasted no time in taking hearty bites out of the sandwich.

Mouth full, he tried to speak around the food. “’Ssit?”

The boy looked at him, not making an effort to conceal the disgust on his face. “Pardon?”

Mulch swallowed. “What is this? Best damn thing I’ve had in the last decade, probably. Also, point the phone away from me, s’il vous plaît and por favor. Can’t be having any more pictures of my mug floating around.”

“It’s a gyro wrap,” the boy said, punching a few buttons on the phone. “I’d ask you to pay me back for it, but I doubt that would be possible, currency-wise. And I’m working, not taking photos — I have more important things on my mind than the mystery of how on Earth you’ve gotten this far through life with those table manners.”

Satisfied with the answer, Mulch finished the sandwich, moving to paw through the rest of the bag.

It hadn’t taken much to get out of the building he’d been held in, in the end. At first he’d been hesitant, lingering behind the kid as they both made their way through the labyrinthine halls, but he’d become bolder once it became clear that no one was coming to stop them. He and the kid had crawled down a fire escape, made their way back to the main road, and trekked alongside the empty street until they’d hit this rest stop. Mulch was still dizzy, and beyond that, he didn’t even know where he was once he’d gotten outside. Following the kid until he got his bearings just made sense.

Popping open the top on some frou-frou fizzy water the boy had thrown in the bag, Mulch drank quietly for a moment.

“I’ve been thinking,” he started, and the boy looked up.

“Is that unusual for you?”

“...Developing a sense of humor, good for you. You’re welcome for the shining example that I’ve provided. But no, I was just thinking that, well,” Mulch paused. “Do you have something like, what, a boss? What’s up with you and the whole… rescuing me thing.”

The boy flipped his phone shut, pulling it up to his chin in thought. “I had business finding out what Damon Kronski and his group were up to. I was expecting them to have found something… other than you, but releasing you from their clutches was advantageous insofar as the ramifications of word of _ any _ kind getting out about magic would be disastrous.”

“Wordy, aren’t you,” Mulch snorted. “I thought as much, too, though.”

The boy smiled at that, his demeanor softer than it had been all night. “You’ll go back to your magic, and I will return to mine. I only ask that you keep Kronski a secret, as I already have word that my people are handling the situation.”

“Fair.”

Mulch shoved his hands into his pockets. “I owe you for tonight, kid.”

Ignoring the boy as the kid opened his mouth to wave off the declaration, Mulch reached for the chain around his neck. He’d tucked the necklace under his shirt to make sure that it didn’t get caught on something when he’d tunnel, and he took a moment to admire the metal as it glinted in the moonlight.

The boy fell silent, watching Mulch in curiosity.

The chain itself had been kept in perfect condition, and the surface glinted more like a pearl than a precious metal. On it were a series of dog tags, many of different sizes and thickness, but all of the same bronze. Gently, Mulch took the chain off his neck, carefully moving one of the tags off the necklace. The smooth metal felt grounding against the rough calluses of his palm, and he allowed himself a moment to run his thumb over the tag’s surface, feeling the grooves of the lettering on it. Hooking the necklace back around his neck, he took care not to let the chain catch on itself.

Thrusting a hand out, Mulch presented the tag to the boy.

“Take it,” he said firmly. “It’s got my family’s rune on it. If you ever run into someone ‘like me’,” he made air-marks, “show them this. Rune stuff is serious business. People usually don’t take my word for much, but they’ll take something like this seriously if you ever get into trouble with one of us.”

Cautiously, the kid reached out for the tag, plucking it from Mulch’s palm as though he was worried Mulch would draw his hand back at the last second.

“Thank you,” he said finally, fingers curling around the object. “I can’t say that I understand the gesture fully, but I appreciate you giving me this.”

Mulch nodded, and the boy pocketed the tag. He could hear the cars puttering by on the road, but his fears that it was the sound of one of his captors coming to swoop him back up had faded. Briefly, he wanted to ask the boy in front of him how he’d gotten tangled up in all this business.

He didn’t, though. They were both going to walk away from this rest stop, and they were going to both remain quiet about the other. That was the only way their respective worlds could go on spinning as they had, undisturbed.

The street lights flickered, and Mulch went back to rummaging through the grocery bag, determined to make up for his missed meals.

* * *

The Endor manor was quiet as Artemis stepped inside.

The looming front door barely made a noise as the hinges glided past one another, swinging open graciously as Artemis had exited the cab he’d taken over. The cab driver outside had put his car into idle, and the headlights were now spilling into the hall. Taking a breath, Artemis closed the door behind him, not waiting for the noise of the car sputtering back out and away from the driveway. His priority was to let Dmitry know about the Extinctionists, but high up on his list of things to do was to find a nook or corner in the house in which he could tuck himself away in and sleep. His mind was too full of the past few yesterdays; hopefully in rest some of them would leak out of his brain, leaving only the necessary bits that would make sense of the puzzle. The business with the fellow from tonight would have to be put on the back-burner; to even attempt to unravel the mystery of who and what he was beyond being someone with magic (and thus someone who the Council wanted to get away from the Extictionists) would take more time than Artemis had these days.

He made his way to the staircase, careful to keep his footfalls away from the parts of the floor that he knew would creak and moan in protest. Artemis felt tense; the entire house had a certain  _ aura _ to it that had nearly bowled him over once he’d stepped onto the property.

He’d not even made it to the top of the staircase when the door to Dmitry’s study creaked open.

Artemis frowned.

He’d not done that, and he hadn’t felt Dmitry’s magic do that, either.

He glanced down at the handrail, feeling the polished mahogany buzzing with energy.

The house was not happy. Something was wrong.

His dread increasing with every second, Artemis steeled himself to continue his ascent. Peeking through the door, his eyes scanned the room, searching for his teacher. His gaze finally fell upon Dmitry, who was sitting peacefully in his armchair, face devoid of the stress lines it usually held. The man’s eyes were closed, and there was no flutter typical of sleep. Everything about Dmitry was still.

A shudder racked the house, an inanimate wail of grief pulsing through the estate in waves.

Artemis stepped back, hand grasping for the doorframe shakily.

Dmitry was dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The epigraph from this is from a Midsummer Night’s Dream when Puck, the trickster faerie, appears on stage at the end of the play to give a soliloquy. It serves as both an apology for the mischief that Puck has caused in-universe and as a meta-commentary on the play itself; “if we shadows have offended/think but this, all is mended” is a line that could refer to the actors (the shadows, literally) or the fae (the shadows, metaphorically). That particular line serves as a segue to the dual function of the epilogue: first, in true Elizabethan fashion, it’s to basically say “hey, thanks for sitting through our little old play and not like, booing us”, and second, it introduces the idea of theatre as something “no more yielding but a dream”. Shakespeare’s world is a blend of fantasy and story-telling that is presented to the audience through acting, and watching the play and enjoying it requires a suspension of reality. In essence, you can’t be cinemasins-ing every element of production (well, if puck is REALLY supposed to be a fairy, then why could I see that there were strings used to give him the appearance of flying??? checkmate, Shakespeare. That was just a dude, not a supernatural creature) if you’re going to truly engage with the themes and text of a work. Focusing on the work metatextually is like coleslaw: it’s neat, but you can’t make a whole meal of it, can you? But to the sect of the audience determined to focus on certain elements of the play instead of engaging with it, such as the (at the time, raunchy humor and potentially unnerving supernatural themes, you can just pretend the past hour or so of your night was a dream instead of like, staying after to yell at the actors.
> 
> Basically, “Think but this, and all is mended” — “the show’s over folks; the characters are happy and the conflict is resolved. No need to throw a fit”.
> 
> And that’s not even touching the role of dreams vs. reality theme as it functions in text! But this isn’t an essay on Midsummer night’s so I’ll leave m’stuff at the door here and get to how this relates to this chap.
> 
> Why’d I choose this soliloquy? First off: Midsummer night’s goddamn RULESSSSS it’s my favorite Shakespeare play of all time. Second, the theme of magic causing chaos and mischief, and the supernatural agents disturbing the peaceful lives of the humans around them? Relevant. But is Artemis firmly in the camp of a supernatural provocateur or in the camp of mortal collateral damage? A question that shall be explored. Tho’ nothing ever has a completely black and white answer, in all fairness.
> 
> Uhhh things that are relevant to the next chapter are pysanky, bureaucracy, and Italy. I will restrain my pretentious little gremlin hands from putting Dante or the Prince as my epigraph for next chap but Know that I am sorely tempted.
> 
> To answer the question about Butler’s military history, I present his early life section of the wiki: “Though none are listed in great detail, Butler has been on many dangerous excursions across the globe, such as being sent out to blow up a Colombian drug lord's estate (only for it to be hit by a massive earthquake seconds before detonating), undertaking a mission for the French Secret Service and later spending a month recuperating in Paris, being part of a five-year stint with an espionage unit in Russia in the late eighties where he, presumably, saw how the local Mafiya operated during dealings with them, going to Laos where he met a man who could put the "whammy" on a person, serving with the ex-Green Beret Sid Commons on bodyguard duty in Monte Carlo, saving the life of Sergeant Justin Barre after he'd been attacked with a hunting knife during a bar fight in the nineties and at some point, being involved with the FBI.”
> 
> Which is… a Long List. So long that I’d put it in a similar category of Artemis allegedly being able to type Paradise Lost in 20 minutes (which would give him a whopping 7525 words per minute uh????). Frankly I think the way I’d deal with Butler’s history prior to officially working for the Fowls in this fic would be that although his resume is prolific, there’s a lot of mythoi that’s been built up around him that he doesn’t exactly correct due to how it gives him an edge in intimidation. (Again, don’t know specifically what ‘old soldier’ refers to, but it could be metaphorical orrrr be a way he classifies one of the above jobs/job he held that just wasn’t mentioned before Artemis was born)
> 
> Thank you again to everyone who has left comments/kudos’d — I appreciate the feedback and kind words!
> 
> (okay side note if you want to watch Midsummer Night’s, my fave is the 1935 film directed by Max Reinhardt skdfhks Olivia de Havilland is stunning as Hermia and I had such a crush on her when I first saw this on TV years ago)


	5. Chapter 5

"The commentators tell us: the correct understanding of a matter and misunderstanding the matter are not mutually exclusive."

* * *

It didn’t take long for Artemis to go through all of Dmitry’s things. The house wasn’t empty, per se, but it was filled up with quite a bit of nothingness. The house would fill up empty spaces and desolate rooms with bits of itself it had bent into ersatz furniture-like shapes, and although these likenesses were real in that they could be touched, they had no more substance than water that dutifully fills up the container it is poured in, adding nothing other than a shallow interior that conforms to the void left by an anticipatory hole. Dmitry’s things, his real belongings, were as such just the odd trinket — things that the house couldn’t manufacture. The house let Artemis pore over the books and curios lying around, but it wasted no time in reclaiming its owner. Artemis had stumbled out of Dmitry’s study, disbelieving and repelled, following his discovery of his departed teacher. When he’d returned, he’d found the door to the study had disappeared, with the only hint that the room had ever been there being a dark curtain strewn over the smooth, flat portion of the wall where there had once been an entrance.

Artemis hadn’t attempted to circumvent the estate’s desire to put Dmitry to rest. The man was gone, after all, and in an odd way, the house was the closest thing Dmitry probably had to a family. In lieu of legal documents, it was only right that the representation of Dmitry’s thoughts and desires be the executor of his will.

He’d as such kept to examining whatever he was able to find. Artemis read the books, leafed through the lists of contacts Dmitry kept, and peeked at the scant records his teacher had recorded. From what he could tell, Dmitry had no premonition of what was to come, no secret anxieties he’d concealed from Artemis in the days leading to his death. Just useless, vapid nothingness. No clues, no leads, no explanations. Artemis was not used to being left with a problem that provided not even the most basic first step from which he could do a sort of intellectual waltzing over to the second (or even third) next step. Furthermore, he wasn’t used to being on such a time-crunch. For all Artemis knew, his father and the Major were already waking up from a two-year-long delusion that Dmitry had constructed. They would both be occupied by the business they were currently en-route to in Murmansk, and there was little either of them could do to get into contact with his mother or Butler while traveling by ship. But their business would not last forever, and Artemis needed to be certain he would be able to maintain Dmitry’s illusions once they returned.

Sighing, he closed the leather-bound book he’d been flipping through for the past hour. It was one of the many he’d pulled off of the bookshelves in the library. The past few days had been taxing. He would wake up when the house lit the windows bespeckling its interior with the warm, fiery color of dawn. Once he’d risen from whatever couch he’d fallen asleep on, he’d make his way to the dining room, where a continental breakfast spread would be strewn out across whatever pseudo-antique table the house had conjured up that day; Artemis would never take more than a slice of toast (with apple butter) and an egg (over-easy), but the house would still lay out a veritable buffet each morning. Once he’d finished his repast, he would make his way to one of the rooms of the house he knew to contain documents or texts he’d seen Dmitry use, and it was such that his day truly began. He’d read, take notes, discard the useless bits, keep the semi-interesting bits, and then begin again with a new stack of books. Again, and again, and again. The house would sometimes remind him to break for meals, but for the most part, Artemis retreated into a sinking pit of word-sludge, up to his neck in histories and subjects he was desperately trying to turn into a neat corner piece for his puzzle. Often times, he didn’t even remember falling asleep — he was caught in a hurricane version of the weeks leading up to the thesis defense of his work on Balkan Politics back at Trinity.

As Artemis reached for another text he’d added to the pile around his feet, a sharp rapping noise sounded from the tall, stained glass window that served both as the centerpiece to the library and as a constant source of light. Barely glancing up, he picked up the book he’d been eyeing earlier.

“Truly your forgiveness I implore;” he murmured. “But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, and so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, that I scarce was sure I heard you.”

The knocking against the glass sounded again, this time more impatient.

He sighed, setting the book back down. “I take it you don’t care for Poe, then?”

The entire frame of the window rattled, and for a moment, Artemis was morbidly curious about what would happen if one of the panes fell loose; perhaps the house existed in a void when it wasn’t necessary for it to take up a place on Earth, and perhaps he’d be pulled out into that void — a cosmonaut being yanked from his ship into the vacuum of space after a rocket failure.

Rising, he made his way over, not wanting to test the house’s ire. The window was still by now, and Artemis was left basking in the varicolored light painting his features. The glass stretched endlessly upwards, it seemed, and even craning his neck, Artemis was unable to see the end of the window — the ceiling was dark like a starless sky, and the windows and walls melted out of definition like oil bleeding through a wine-dark sea.

He squinted.

Something was twirling through the air from above. It was still far too high above him to be anything but a light speck, but there was clearly something falling down. As it neared, it came into view, and Artemis was able to make out a small, white envelope tumbling towards him. It was so light that its descent was slow, and Artemis was able to pluck it out of the air above him before it pirouetted away.

The house rumbled in contentment.

Frowning, he made his way back to the chair he’d been sitting in. Distractedly, he reached for the drawer of the coffee table next to him, using a single hand to rummage around for what he was looking for. He flinched, drawing his hand back suddenly. Setting the letter down on top of the table, he put his attention towards looking for the letter opener he’d almost nicked himself on. Finally, he set to opening the envelope.

His eyes moved quickly down the letter. It didn’t take long to read — the entire message was no longer than a few paragraphs. The Council that Dmitry had been so disdainful of sent their condolences. They _ also _ requested Artemis’ presence for a brief meeting surrounding the passing of Dmitry. It was all very clinical and bureaucratic.

Artemis tossed the letter onto the table next to him, closing his eyes to think.

“Shall I go?” he asked aloud, opening his eyes and looking around the room.

To his disappointment, the house offered nothing. Making a face, he leaned back in his seat. He was back at square one.

The room darkened. Startled, he shot up out of the chair, fingers curling around the letter opener.

The window flashed, remaining lit for a few moments. Then it darkened for an instant before illuminating once more, the light enduring for the same period of time. Cautiously, Artemis relaxed, taking mental note of the flashes and darkening.

\-- --- .-. -. .. -. --.

Morning.

Mulling over the house’s message, Artemis toyed with the letter opener, twirling it around his fingers as he moved to deposit it back into the drawer.

Morning. Interesting.

“Thank you,” he called out, settling back into his chair in the darkness. “Please wake me up at least an hour before we arrive, please. I want to leave a decent impression, after all.”

It would take some time before he fell asleep, but eventually, the house’s distant creaks and moans faded into white noise.

Morning would come soon enough.

* * *

The Paris Catacombs were a magnificent example of human ingenuity. The underground network of caverns and tunnels stretched for miles — many of which were available for touring. When the house had arrived in a neighborhood nearby the entrance to the underground tomb, Artemis had quickly gathered where his first place to look was. It certainly helped that the letter he’d been given seemed to tug this way and that in his pocket, allowing him to make his way slowly to the ossuary like he was playing a game of hot-or-cold. As he’d expected, there was a guard stationed at the opening, but the man seemed to understand intuitively to let Artemis through when he’d pulled out the letter. The man didn’t seem to understand why he was leading Artemis through the tunnels, of course, but he complied with the suggestion the letter had planted in his mind nonetheless. The tunnels they made their way through were often sectioned off with signs warning of structural weakness, but Artemis had been around Dmitry long enough to suspect that it was likely that if he tried to touch those signs, the writing on them would flicker away, revealing decaying paper with naught on it.

It was a painstakingly slow process, but Artemis was eventually standing in front of a gated-off corridor.

For a moment, it seemed as though the officer wanted to say something, but Artemis waved him off, stepping forward as the wrought-iron barrier swung open and inward into the darkness of the catacombs.

“You keep yourself safe, yeah?” the man offered, a bit uselessly, and Artemis nodded, pocketing the letter at last.

As he walked deeper into the inner sanctum, he saw the pale yellow and honey light cast by torches. The light led all the way into a circular room lit by floating balls of flame that hung like tea-lights around a long, rectangular table that seated various figures. They presumably were the Council, and Artemis forced himself not to sigh at the ostentatiousness of the décor. Firelight and catacombs. No wonder Dmitry acted the way he did — he came from a society of Byronic aesthetes.

“Stop,” one of the men at the table said, and Artemis dutifully halted.

“Are you the young one our departed brother has been apprenticing?” the man continued.

Obviously, Artemis thought derisively. What other ten year old would be down in the catacombs in the middle of the night?

Instead, he merely nodded. “I am.”

At that, he felt as though he was able to see the people seated at the table properly. He’d had a vague idea of their size and general appearance before, but it had been kept fuzzy by forces beyond his control. There were three of them, and their names seared onto Artemis’ brain with startling definition.

“I am here about his death,” Artemis began, pulling out the letter and setting it on the table. “I believe he was killed.”

The man seated at the head of the table laced his fingers together, cocking his head. “Why is that?”

Surprised, Artemis let a flicker of confusion contort his face before he was able to wrestle his expression back to neutrality. “Can your kind die without being killed?”

The man, Arus, laughed. “A question as an answer. I’ll allow it, though. No, we generally can’t. We live far longer than is perhaps wise when left to our own devices.”

“Before he passed, he was investigating the Extinctionists,” Artemis continued, trying to not reveal how unsettled he was. “I believe that their discovery of magic could have perhaps led to his death.”

Arus raised his brows, drawing his lips into a thin line. “Oh. Them. I’d be willing to bet good money that they’ve never seen real magic in their entire lives. It’s doubtful they had anything to do with your teacher.”

Filing away that information, Artemis made a note not to mention the creature he’d met when prowling through the halls of Kronski’s building complex.

“You seemed so… concerned about them when you requested assistance with the Extinctionists a few weeks ago,” he tried carefully, studying the faces before him for a reaction.

“That was a few weeks ago,” Arus said, shrugging. “This week, we are not concerned.”

Artemis looked back and forth between the elders seated at the table, carefully poring over which words to use.

“You meant for Dmitry to die.”

Light chuckling and titters floated around the table.

Arus raised his wine glass to his mouth, doubtlessly trying to hide the twitches of mirth dancing upon his lips. “He’s been going by Dmitry?”

Artemis clenched his fists.

The cloaked man, Icarot, sitting to Arus’ right took pity on Artemis, laying a hand on the High Cleric’s shoulder to quiet his companion. “You are very clever to infer that so quickly. How long has he had you around, little _ Artyom _?”

“Two years or so,” Artemis replied, voice curt. “I take it you have little affection for him.”

“Perhaps we had a great deal of affection for him,” the woman, Maymag, remarked, eyes glinting with enigmatic light. “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”

Her comment only prompted more laughter around the cavernous room.

“He was a dogmatist,” she elaborated, sobering as she motioned for the others to quiet down with the wave of a hand. “The worst of his kind. The world had no room for… _ Dmitry, _ and he had no room for it. The only crowd he could entice to his pulpit was you, Artemis. An outsider and a child. Do you not see how pitiable that is? To release him was a mercy. It might seem like a vicissitude from your young eyes, but old creatures like him only ache more when forced to evolve.”

Arus set his goblet down. “Cleric Maymag is correct.”

“If he was such an embarrassment,” Artemis interjected, lip curling. “Then why seek his aid in the first place? Seems a bit hypocritical. However, what do I know? I’m merely an outsider and a child, as you said.”

The laughter quieted at that.

Maymag quirked an eyebrow up, but she said nothing.

“There will always be more Kronskis,” Artemis said firmly. “There will always be more humans who peer beyond the veil. There will always be—”

“Kronski and his ilk were never a concern,” Arus cut him off. “Why else would Dmitry send _ you?” _

Artemis blinked.

Arus continued, tone dripping with false sympathy, and he rose from his chair “And we _ knew _ he’d send you. Kronski was a means to an end — a way to get you far enough away as to not be collateral damage.”

“There aren’t many young of our kind,” Icarot explained, words echoing and tinny as he spoke into his goblet. “Don’t go about getting any inflated ideas surrounding yourself.”

“Your existence presents us with the opportunity to mitigate a loss,” Maymag agreed, resting her chin upon an outstretched hand. “Dmitry goes. You take his place. A neat, zero-sum solution.”

“He forced our hand,” Arus sighed. “We’d just lost one of our members earlier this century — he knew we’d be hesitant to shrink our numbers even more...”

“But he found you.”

“… And just _ two _ years ago. That’s but a blink of the eye, even for human-raised stock.”

“— not nearly _ in corpore sano _ enough to have made much progress with you.”

“— Opportunities...”

For a moment, a vision of himself clapping his hands over his ears and keening over from the raucous chatter rang through Artemis’ mind with the utmost clarity.

“Dmitry was a bad man, that much is true,” he grit out, his voice barely carrying over the bedlam. “But to kill one of your own without trial… how could I ever work with you, knowing I am only ever a single trespass against you lot from being put down like a dog as well?”

“A _ ‘bad man’ _ — he was planning to turn this world to ash,” Icarot remarked mildly. “Do you plan to do the same, _ Artyom?” _

“How?” Artemis challenged, ire rising. “Are his crimes so wicked that the mere _ mention _ of his sins—”

“Old gods. _ Very _ complicated to explain if you’re not up to date on your obscure occultist sects — I don’t suppose you’re familiar with Eldritch Hermeticism? That’d be approaching something akin to what he bought into,” Arus provided, his lazy grin mirroring that of Artemis’ late teacher.

“You mock me,” Artemis said softly.

Icarot softened. “Maybe so. Nonetheless, our offer is genuine.”

“He needn’t decide now,” Maymag cut in. She reached into her cloak to pull out a robin’s egg blue envelope, but Artemis was only half paying attention to her.

The letter was no bigger than a card box.

Flipping it up into the air, Maymag watched as it spun suspended in place, twirling like an ornament on a hanging mobile.

“Come back when you are grown,” she said, and the letter shot across the space between the Council and Artemis, hitting him lightly. It dropped to the ground, making a dull sound. “Make up your mind where you belong. If you still elect to hate us, I promise you that the pain we’ve caused will be no more than a distant dream. But until then, ruminate on Dmitry. Ruminate on us. Decide.”

They could have made the letter appear in his pocket, Artemis thought bitterly as he reached down to pick it up off the floor. Everything was a spectacle with these people.

Stowing the envelope away, he nodded at each of the three mages seated before him.

“You are dismissed,” Arus announced, going back to his cards. Even Icarot, the most diplomatic of the trio, seemed to have returned to his previous business.

And so Artemis left, allowing the policeman from before to lead him back through the ossuary, returning to the empty streets off no better than before.

Passing the officer a few francs, Artemis continued to the disguised mansion. Cleverly, it had tucked itself in between the tightly-packed houses that stood like a quilted wall; an architectural version of the particolored costume of a jester. The only thing that marked his house as strange were the anachronistic merlons that wrapped like stone teeth along the flat roof’s perimeter, with not a single bird nor bat attempting to alight upon the castle-like parapet.

Pausing slightly at the door, Artemis reached for the letter he’d tucked away into his jacket. He admired it in the warm light cast by the lamps, the thin paper looking almost like a membrane with how it became translucent and greenish under the brightness.

He tossed it away, the letter tumbling through the cracks of a storm drain. If he’d cared to look, he would have seen it become consumed by the dark water that ran below.

He didn’t need to wait for his 18th birthday. It was abundantly clear that he’d already outgrown this secret society of mages. When Dmitry had remarked on being an outcast among his kind, Artemis had expected it to have something to do with how the man used his power to remain vindictive and immature — and perhaps it did, in a sense. The Council and Dmitry must have driven each other mad, as each was a mirror of the others, the monstrous sibling that suggests one’s own ugliness.

Artemis didn’t want another Dmitry. He certainly didn’t want anything to do with the Council.

Absentmindedly, he toyed with the necklace chain around his neck. His knuckle brushed the old, sterling silver ring he’d found amongst Dmitry’s things — he’d have liked to have worn it properly, what with the fetching intricate shaping of the metal into a pair of finely detailed clasped, skeletal hands that had shimmering labradorite stones that were inset as the nails, but the ring was slightly too loose on his fingers, save for the thumb. He’d put it on the necklace for the meantime. Artemis let the ring fall away from his fingers, moving down the chain.

He toyed with the dog-tag hanging next to the ring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY notes on references. Epigraph: from Kafka’s “The Trial”. Basically, text is open to potentially infinite (and seemingly contradictory) interpretations, bureaucracies can build into themselves illogical structures and tasks that end up having to be carried out to preserve the institution (although what happens when humans serve a system instead of systems serving humans?), and the senselessness and brutal confusion that worms itself into life. Next: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”: this translation that appeared in the King James Bible and was used to justify witch hunts. King James VI and I’s (the name refers to just one man — he was James VI as King of Scotland and James I as King of Ireland and England) “visit to Denmark, a country familiar with witch-hunts, sparked an interest in the study of witchcraft, which he considered a branch of theology. He attended the North Berwick witch trials, the first major persecution of witches in Scotland under the Witchcraft Act 1563. Several people were convicted of using witchcraft to send storms against James's ship, most notably Agnes Sampson. James became obsessed with the threat posed by witches and wrote Daemonologie in 1597, a tract inspired by his personal involvement that opposed the practice of witchcraft and that provided background material for Shakespeare's Tragedy of Macbeth.” (King James VI and I Wikipedia is the source bc I’m tired and am too lazy to hit up JSTOR soz). The KJV was sponsored by him starting in 1604 and was published in 1611 (after he’d written Daemonologie in 1597) — it was used as a way to expand punishments given to people (mainly women) who were accused of witchcraft. Public records suggest deaths between 40,000 to 100,000 — tho’ way more were accused and given lighter punishments than the death penalty. In an analysis by George N. Conklin, an associate professor of classics and comparative literature at Wesleyan University (Middletown, CT) wrote, “To say that the offense of witchcraft was wholly imaginary since witchcraft is scientifically impossible, is like saying that there were no alchemists because alchemy is impossible”. Essentially, this was a law that was on the books because of superstition and the ability for people who were undesirable (the mentally ill, the homeless, people who disrupted the status quo, hell, even like, just midwives who practiced healthcare) to be disposed of under it; it wasn’t ever really about witches so much as witchcraft gave a justification to the terror enacted across Europe — James himself ended up deciding that he wasn’t sure witches existed later in life. In essence, someone who oversaw the conviction of multiple people and wrote a book that served as inspiration from some of the most famous witches in literature (heyo, Macbeth!) told his son something that can be boiled down to “yeah, most accusations of witchcraft are bunk and I’m not even really sure witchcraft is possible”. Yikes! Anyways, this was a long-winded way to say that 1) the quote exists in this as a way for the council to hypocritically poke fun at humanity for allowing a desire to get rid of people they deemed undesirables to get in the way of truth and justice and 2) essentially say that Dmitry’s death was ultimately a boon to him. Other than that, the parallels end, as Dmitry is unabashedly a Whole Dick who was deserving of the heat that caught up to him, even if his end came from people who are really no better than he is. A final note is the line Artemis says: “Truly your forgiveness I implore; But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, and so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, that I scarce was sure I heard you.” That’s from The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe! The poems about a raven bothering the narrator with its squawking cry of “Nevermore!” that forces the narrator to reflect upon the loneliness he feels at the loss of a woman who was dear to him, Lenore. The poem opens by the raven rapping at the door, and Artemis is teasing the house by comparing it to the gothic bird from Poe’s poem. I was either gonna go with the Raven opening lines or have Artemis quote "Some One" by Walter de la Mare. Although I liked that this poem captured the idea of a “nothing” knocker — a semi-supernatural feeling woven into nature — I ultimately decided it was a tiny bit too childish for Artemis. Hence, the supernatural raven visitor from Poe’s poem! Also, the idea of losing someone you care for deeply pushing you to madness? The Fowl Star is not going to make it Murmansk — and that loneliness and grief bowling one over definitely characterizes Angeline in book one. Dunno if I can call it foreshadowing when it’s literally just the canon events surrounding why Artemis contacts the People in the first AF book but! That’s how it is.


	6. Chapter 6

“Do you know how it is when one wakes at night suddenly and asks, listening to the pounding heart: what more do you want, insatiable?”

  
  


— Czeslaw Milosz, from “Farewell”, New and Collected Poems: 1931-2001

“I felt and saw the night outside deep within me. Wind and wetness, autumn, bitter smell of foliage, scattered leaves of the elm tree.”

  
  


— Hermann Hesse, The Fairytales of Hermann Hesse (trans. Jack Zipes)

* * *

CNN broke the news a little bit before midnight.

Butler had just finished his rounds. He’d been sitting in the old armchair by his bed, quietly reading, when the phone on his nightstand began to ring. The breathing on the other end of the line had been shaky and syncopated — Justin’s breathing. Barre’s voice had taken on a raspy quality ever since the bar fight injury that he’d sustained years back.

Butler faintly remembered his hands tightening around the phone.

He didn’t know what he’d been expecting. He knew it wasn’t going to be pleasantries. No one Butler had made space for in his life had time for something as small as that, for better or for worse.

But he hadn’t been expecting…

Butler stopped his pacing around the kitchen, rubbing the bridge of his nose and grasping for the cool marble countertop.

Justin had broken the silence by telling him to turn on the television.

The Fowl Star had been sunk off of the Murmansk Fjord earlier in the day.

He hadn’t woken anyone in the house up yet. Butler simply didn’t know how to tell Juliet that her uncle was no longer with them. The idea of talking to Angeline about the accident was terrifying — she fell ill from stress when he left on his business trips, and the knowledge that her husband was somewhere at the bottom of the sea would most likely break her. And Artemis…

Dimly, Butler wondered what would become of him. Angeline was surely the successor to her husband's estate, and for as much as he didn’t stay around enough to show it, Artemis Sr. had loved his wife. She’d want for nothing, need for nothing. The house would be hers, the stocks would be hers, and if Angeline and Butler wanted to pursue it, the contract Butler had held with her son could surely be tweaked, thus ensuring that safety would be hers as well.

But she would want nothing to do with the house. She would want nothing to do with the stocks. She would want nothing to do with _ him. _

The kitchen remained silent.

“Shit,” he finally let out, exhaling roughly. He sank to the floor, the hardwood creaking under his weight.

Artemis had been ten. Too young to…

By now, it was a reflex to quash any train of thought that betrayed how he’d failed to keep his charge at a distance. But what did it matter tonight? Whether or not Butler had privately considered Artemis to be family was no longer something that he could be lambasted over. The contract between the Fowls and Butlers was void in the absence of the former half of the equation.

There were not many times Domovoi could remember when he’d allowed himself to be selfish. For now, the loss would belong to him alone. He would be the only one he needed to comfort for a little while longer. He would only have to bear his own weight. He would mourn _ his _ uncle and _ his _ charge. Domovoi could be strong once the morning crept closer, but in the dim light of the kitchen, the cabinets and old floor would be solid and secure, and he would be the one that was allowed tenderness.

Domovoi settled in, the faint sound of the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall filling the emptiness of the room. In the stillness, he felt as though he were waiting, listening for something that would pop the bubble encircling the kitchen’s suffocating feeling of coziness.

One a.m. crept by. Then two.

He stayed in the kitchen, waiting.

The clock continued ticking.

Threefourfivesix.

The sun had been poking above the horizon later and later, coaxed into drowsiness by the coolness of September.

Seven a.m.

Angeline would be rising soon, Domovoi felt himself think.

Petulant, the light lines of dusky, warm pinks and shy purples stacked themselves like bars across the sky, refusing to blend themselves yet into a uniform blue.

Outside, the sound of tires crushing gravel traveled through the window he’d cracked open in an attempt to clear his thoughts.

The hinges of the front door creaked, with the floorboards in the hall protesting as weight was applied to them.

Domovoi raised his head.

The grandfather clock stopped ticking.

Frozen in the doorway, Artemis stared at him awkwardly, simultaneously surprised and guilty he’d been caught.

“Butler?”

Butler’s mouth went dry.

Artemis timidly placed a hand against the polished wood of the entrance, unsure at the sight of his bodyguard in such a distraught state.

“What’s wrong?”

Rubbing at the wetness on his cheeks, Butler shook his head.

“You weren’t with them,” he said finally, forcing his voice to remain steady. “You weren’t— you’re alright. You’re alright — Artemis,” he broke, pleading. “You weren’t on the ship.”

Artemis took a step back. Even in the low light of dawn, Butler could see Artemis’ hawkish eyes studying him. He’d piece things together soon enough, Butler thought glumly.

“You’re alright,” he said, more to himself.

Artemis moved to sit next to him, gingerly lowering himself onto the kitchen floor.

“Of course I am,” Artemis remarked simply, as if the alternative were an impossibility.

That statement was almost harder to hear than the CNN broadcast.

In the low light of the dawn, it was the first and only time Butler would allow Artemis to see him cry.

In the low light of the dawn, Artemis said nothing, leaning his small frame against the sturdy side of his bodyguard.

In the low light of the dawn, the grandfather clock commenced its ticking as if it had never stopped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey so its been a LONG time since my last update (please ignore the fact that I have another piece that I haven't updated in a year ksdjhfkks) sorry! But it has Arrived and hopefully, it’s good-ish! The epigraphs of this were chosen for the reasons as follows: Czeslaw Milosz’s poem is chosen because the poem deals with the idea of a present constructed out of a crumbled past (which I like from a character analysis standpoint of Artemis losing his father and the butler’s losing their uncle AND from the standpoint of how fanfic works in basically sifting through rubble and finding the pillars of what you’re gonna base your stuff off of). I then chose Hermann Hesse bc I felt that that quote has a very dark fairytale vibe to it — also!! in literary symbolism, autumn usually represents change, maturity, sadness or preparing for an end or decline.
> 
> Uhhh I guess the only other thing that was done Intentionally that I think is of note is when Butler believes Artemis has died, he briefly switches from referring to himself as butler to referring to himself as domovoi — because, in a sense, he’s believed that that chapter of his life is over too.
> 
> That’s all folks! Also this isn’t an au in that art sr is still alive (and who knows what’s going on with the major eye emoji) and that Artemis will still attempt to make a deal with the extinctionists for the lemur (but I don’t think ill have a chap on that bc I've basically decided kronski wouldn't have known Artemis was involved w setting mulch free)
> 
> hopefully, the next chap will be out soon?? Fear.png because I have lots of work :( reviews are super appreciated, as always!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I havent updated in ages sorry!! The quote this chapter is from Anne Carson, and I chose it in essence because a common problem in this story is people talking around each other — their conversations are made up of words with literal meanings, such as Butler and Artemis talking about what happened with the Fowl Star sinking, but these conversations are actually about things different than what they are literally talking about, such as how Butler wants Artemis to trust him and how Artemis still is unsure of whether or not Butler cares about him beyond being his bodyguard. Also, the bit at the end about Angeline knowing how the butlers will die references the incident in the Eternity code where Butler is nearly killed. Food for thought: if angeline knew about what would happen to the Major and Butler, why didn’t she predict what would happen with the Fowl Star? 
> 
> I hope the next update will come out soon!
> 
> Reviews are appreciated, and I hope that you enjoyed this chapter!

"We operate all the time with language as if it says what we mean."

— Anne Carson

* * *

Juliet padded down the hall, the wood cool on the soles of her feet even through the thin barrier of the socks she’d slipped on after sliding out of bed. The alarm clock in her brother’s room had gone off around 5 a.m. as usual, and she’d heard the muffled sound of the beeping through the walls. She always woke up during the handful of seconds between when Dom’s alarm clock went off and when he carefully switched it off. Most mornings she would stay in bed, listening to the sound of drawers opening and shutting as her brother shuffled around, getting ready for the day. Usually, she drifted back to sleep for another hour or so, comforted by the idea of Domovoi wandering the halls.

The alarm didn’t shut off this morning.

Juliet had laid there, listening to the sound. The beeping was the only noise next door — she couldn’t hear the creaking of the springs on her brother’s mattress as he rolled out of bed, she didn’t hear the soft clicking of the light switch, and she was unable to hear the groaning of the door hinges as it swung open to the hall.

Eventually, the alarm clock went silent. It was designed to do that if it was left on for too long.

Juliet peered down the stairwell, her shadow spilling down across the steps and into the dim light of the downstairs main hall. Faintly, she could hear her brother’s hushed voice and the sound of a woman weeping.

Her brow furrowed.

Fingers ghosting against the beautifully carved stair rail, she descended down the steps.

* * *

“I don’t understand,” Angeline hiccupped, breathing stilted. “He — He — What?”

Through the crack of the doorway, Juliet watched her brother awkwardly rub the curve of Angeline’s spine.

“They don’t know what happened yet,” Butler said quietly. “I saw it on the news last night—”

“You  _ knew _ ?”

“ _ Angeline _ —”

“You knew and you — why wouldn’t you have gotten—”

“I thought Artemis was with them!” Butler snapped, composure slipping.

The room fell silent.

Juliet drew away from the door. Angeline would want to go back to her room soon, and Juliet wasn’t keen to get caught up in watching over Mrs. Fowl.

Carefully, she turned to make her way back upstairs.

Juliet flinched.

Standing in the dim light of the kitchen door was a seated figure.

“Juliet?”

It was Artemis.

Tension seeping away from her shoulders slightly, Juliet nodded. “What happened?” she asked, inching closer. “When’d  _ you _ get back?”

In the dark, she saw Artemis shrug listlessly. The light of the kitchen backlit him, creating an eerie effect. He cleared his throat, voice thick, but said nothing.

He looked small.

Moving slowly, Juliet sank to the floor. She pushed herself against the frame of the door, and Artemis twisted slightly to accommodate her in the space next to him. Pulling her knees up to her chest, she let her head lay against the strong doorframe. In some ways, the wood of the frame provided more warmth than the feeling of Artemis to her side — at least it had soaked up some of the heat emitted by the radiator. When Artemis leaned back against her, their shoulders bumping as if to hold one another up through pushing back against each other’s weight, he was the same temperature as the dawn’s air.

Distantly, she recalled when she tried to tussle with him when they were both young. When she’d hushed him, hugging him in a last-ditch attempt to quiet him as his face turned ruddy after she’d accidentally elbowed him in the sternum, she’d been astonished by how warm he’d been — it was almost as if he was perpetually running a fever when he’d been but four or five years old.

It was almost a distant memory at this point.

Tentatively, she felt a cool hand wrap around hers.

Curling her hand around his and delicately lacing their fingers together, Juliet let the distant rumble of her brother’s voice fade into garbled noise.

“I’m sorry about your uncle.”

It was said so quietly that Juliet could have almost missed it.

* * *

Butler waited a month before he asked the question.

Of course, Artemis knew that Butler was going to ask it eventually. Artemis had to have known. Perhaps it was selfish, but Butler had pushed all the strangeness of the accident out of his mind for the first week after the sinking of the Fowl Star. He couldn’t deal with anything beyond waking up, patrolling the grounds, making sure everyone in the house ate, and then going to bed.

But there was now some distance from that hellish first night.

The night the Fowl Star sank, and Artemis came home.

The table in the kitchenette was small enough that it was hard for Artemis to ignore his bodyguard when they ate lunch together, but despite this, Artemis remained steadfastly interested in the finer details of the soup he had been raking his spoon through for the past half an hour.

Clearing his throat, Butler leaned his elbows against the table, crossing his arms. The furniture creaked under his weight, and the soup sloshed around slightly in Artemis’ bowl.

“Artemis.”

“Butler.”

Butler pursed his lips.

“Artemis, you know we have to talk about this,” he tried, and the frown on Artemis’ face deepened as the concentric circles his spoon was making widened.

“For all you know,” Artemis began, and Butler forced himself not to sigh. “I could be traumatized. I could have ‘survivor’s guilt’. Frankly, I don’t think either of us are psychologically ready to—”

“Artemis, I just want to know where you were on the trip,” Butler exhaled. “I know you don’t want to talk about it. And we don’t have to. I just want you to help me to understand what happened, and then we’ll be done.”

Artemis hummed slightly. “I went with them on business. My father decided at the last moment that it wasn’t wise for me to be on such an extended trip at such a young age. I was then flown home.”

Mulling over Artemis’ words, Butler sat there in silence. Finally, he sighed.

“Maybe it’s because I don’t… fully understand why your father brought you along in the first place. But — Artemis,” Butler said gently. “No one called ahead to say you were coming home early. I looked at the bank statements of that week, and your father didn’t even hire someone to fly home with you. I just want to understand, Artemis. If you can help me to understand, I can deal with all the arrangements that are being made.”

“You think there was foul play,” Artemis noted, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards slightly at the unintentional pun he’d made.

“Yes,” Butler agreed, nodding slightly. “But… I’ll be honest with you, Artemis.”

Artemis looked up from his soup.

“I want to ask  _ you _ . I want to have this conversation with you because I know that that’s what you would prefer. I’m not going to go behind your back because I know that you can be mature and talk to me.”

“And?” Artemis prompted.

“Why did your father take you along on these trips?”

“He wanted me to learn the family business,” Artemis responded neatly, meeting Butler’s gaze.

“He told me that. I’m asking  _ you _ , though.”

“And I’m telling you the same,” Artemis noted. “It seems as though my presence on those trips was productive, then, if I can respond as my father would have.”

“Artemis,” Butler sighed. “This isn’t about business. The Fowl Star wasn’t sunk by businessmen. This is mob matters. As your bodyguard, I need to know if your father got you tangled up in the same — I need to know how far you’re in,” he stressed, moving the bowl of soup away from Artemis.

“I’ve made things easy for you,” Artemis retorted. “As I’m not even remotely ‘in’.”

“I’m not saying he was a bad man,” Butler backtracked. “But I know far,  _ far _ too much about the kind of business he got up to to pretend like he wasn’t part of that world. I’m not asking this to disparage your memory of your father. He could be a good man and still… still be involved in that life. The only thing I want is for you to be safe.”

Artemis quirked his head slightly at the final comment. “For how long?”

Butler started. “Excuse me?”

Artemis straightened in confidence. “The bank accounts and stocks won’t last forever, Butler. Are you planning to work for me,  _ pro bono _ , until I reach the age when I can inherit the family’s assets and business?”

Mouth opening and closing, Butler floundered. In all honesty, that  _ had _ been his plan — and he hadn’t thought that it had sounded all that far-fetched. “Er—yes?”

Artemis went silent, his gaze calculating. “You understand that I may never fully restore the business to what it was, correct?”

The worry lines on Butler’s face deepened. “Of course.”

“Alright.”

“Hm?”

“Alright. I can tell you with complete confidence that I’ve never been caught up in mob business.”

Butler waited for Artemis to continue, but his charge had evidently decided he’d finished.

Butler frowned. “Is that all you have to say to me?”

Artemis reached for his soup, finally taking a spoonful. “Yes.”

“Alright, Artemis.”

* * *

The Saint Bartley dorms were surprisingly cramped for the exorbitant price tag attached to them.

Silently, Artemis watched his roommate rummage through their joint closet, the sound of the coat hangers rustling grating on his nerves. A crash sounded, and Artemis sighed, sitting up slightly to look at the hanging rod that had come free from its anchoring.

Desmond stood in the midst of sweaters and blazers, looking like the world’s most sheepish scarecrow.

“Sorry, Art.”

Artemis gave him a thin-lipped smile, but it came out more like a grimace. “It’s ‘Artemis’, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Desmond rolled his eyes, going back to riffling around through the pile of his and Artemis’ clothes. “Sorry for trying to help you come across as less of a ponce, I guess.”

“Giving as ever,” Artemis remarked, raising an eyebrow. “But I’m afraid I’m committed to martyring myself by going by my name instead of the moniker you’ve so lovingly picked out for me.”

Desmond winced, scrunching his shoulders up as he picked up a windbreaker. “Don’t say that crap.”

“The same to you,” Artemis replied, increasingly losing interest in the conversation.

Clucking his tongue, Desmond threw the garment onto the ground. “Do you have a cross?”

How quickly Desmond moved on, Artemis noted, almost amused. “Why?”

“Look, it’s a yes or no question.”

“Answer my question first.”

Desmond waved a hand evasively. “It’s for a club thing.”

“Choir?”

“What? No,” Desmond scoffed. “It’s just this club that a few of the upperclassmen threw together.”

Artemis looked at him expectantly.

“Fine. Whatever. It’s…” Desmond tried, the tips of his ears turning slightly ruddy. “It’s the Saint Bart’s Occult Society. They said you have to bring something that can be used as protection to each of the outings.”

Artemis made a face. “Excuse me?”

“It’s like a ghost-hunting club… thingy.”

“I wasn’t aware we had ghosts at school,” Artemis said lightly. “How old money of us.”

Although Artemis half expected Desmond to snap at him for poking fun, what with Desmond being as easy to embarrass as he was, Desmond simply clucked his tongue in annoyance.

“Do you want to come?”

Surprised, Artemis almost laughed. When Desmond remained silent, Artemis’ face fell, sobering. Against all odds, Desmond seemed to be serious.

“Don’t you have friends you could invite?” Artemis wondered. Although he hadn’t thought it possible, the remark seemed to make Desmond look even guiltier.

“Ryan and Even are coming too, if that’s cool,” Desmond explained, waving him off. “You can walk over with us.”

Forcing himself not to make a face, Artemis shook his head. “I’m fine, thank you.”

Desmond hesitated. “You don’t have to stay the entire time.”

Artemis reached for his phone, flicking through the email notifications that had popped up while he’d been busy with schoolwork. Condolence message, scam mail, and a few sparse notes regarding the specifics of the sinking of the Fowl Star. Artemis permitted himself a brief scowl, dismissing most of the messages and starring the few useful ones.

Suddenly, his ears pricked, and he looked up. “Pardon?”

Desmond looked like he’d rather die than repeat himself. “Come on.”

“I’m afraid I didn’t hear you,” Artemis apologized, putting away his phone in his pocket. “Are you heading out soon?”

“Look,” Desmond tried, huffing. “I’m… I’m sorry about your dad. If you want to have the room to yourself for an hour, or whatever —”

Artemis blinked. “You thought it would be appropriate to invite me to a  _ ghost _ hunting group as a way to have fun after I got news of my father’s accident?”

Desmond practically turned green. “Shite — sorry, I’m — shite.”

Artemis knew it was mean-spirited, but it felt good to not be pitied, even if it was only momentarily. Artemis was not used to being treated like he was liable to break at the slightest amount of pressure, and to give a resolute  _ whack _ to Desmond using the very olive branch the boy had offered made Artemis feel like he had a tiny bit of the power he’d had back before everything went wrong.

But the moment passed.

Sighing, Artemis shook his head. “I’m just teasing. I think the club is…a bit asinine, but your invitation is hardly traumatizing.”

Desmond’s shoulders relaxed, and he tentatively gave Artemis a smile. “Are you sure you don’t want to come?”

Artemis opened his mouth, but he paused, the gears in his head-turning. “I suppose I have nothing better to do,” he said after a moment.

Dmitry’s ring hanging on a chain around his neck felt heavier.

Clearly, Desmond was not expecting this outcome, as his face flushed with equal parts regret and surprise.

Artemis mentally tsk’d. Oh, Desmond. Even when he was trying to be nice, he still couldn’t fully avoid being just the  _ slightest _ bit insensitive. Not waiting for his roommate to attempt to wheedle his way out of bringing him along, Artemis rose from his bed, looking at Desmond expectantly. Desmond hesitated for a moment, but seeing no way to get out of bringing to the meeting, he shoved his hands in his pockets and gestured with his head towards the door. Quirking at an eyebrow at Desmond’s poorly concealed sulking, Artemis made his way to their door.

“Lead the way, Desmond.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Desmond sighed, no doubt mentally going over how he would later explain to his friends why his roommate had come to the meeting.

They made their way over to his friends’ room in silence. Once they’d successfully found Ryan and Even, Artemis fell to the back of the procession. Leisurely, he let the group of friends walk ahead. Desmond had likely figured that inviting Artemis along was enough as a good deed, and in truth, Artemis wasn’t that offended. Artemis had been aware of this even before his father had gone missing, but there was seemingly a gulf between him and his peers. Not just intellectually, though — most of the problem seemed to in truth stem from the fact he and his classmates inhabited different social and emotional worlds. Desmond had no reference point for dealing with someone who had lost a loved one because he was still living in a world where death was purely theoretical. How could Artemis be offended, therefore, that Desmond struggled to offer support? At least Desmond was trying. 

Tuning out the sound of chatter, Artemis let his gaze wander along the corridor as they walked. Saint Bartleby’s was definitely distinctly more British-looking than the other prestigious Irish private schools Artemis could name — in both aesthetics and education, Saint Bart’s seemed to eschew its Irish roots almost in entirety. The school had been built in the 18 th century, right about when the upper-class Anglo-Irish began seeing Ireland as their home. They’d wanted an Irish elite school to which they could send their children, and so Saint Bartleby’s had been erected. However, no matter how much these  _ New English _ saw themselves as Irish, their idea surrounding what sort of school was sufficiently impressive was undeniably British. When Artemis’ father had flown them out to Oxford for business last summer, Artemis had fully been able to appreciate the astonishing degree to which Saint Bartleby’s was a love letter to palatial English architecture.

Artemis frowned.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to dwell very long on old memories, as the group arrived outside the old auditorium. Briefly, the group stopped on the steps and admired the way the stone building stretched strong and proud upwards into the sky. It was unlikely that the club was big enough to warrant reserving this space for a meeting, Artemis thought, shooting a glance at Desmond. His roommate was unaware of his gaze, instead pushing through the door.

They all filtered into the lobby, the wooden floorboards creaking slightly under their footfalls. 

It turned out Artemis had been correct. There weren’t enough members in the club to justify using the auditorium itself — when Desmond finally located the correct office that was tucked away in some side hall, Artemis was not surprised to see that there were only ten or so people crowded into the room. A few of the members seemed surprised that Artemis was present. The club members looked warily at Desmond to see if the new member had tagged along solely to make fun of the endeavor, but Desmond clapped a hand on Artemis’ shoulder, and that was that.

There weren’t enough chairs to seat everybody, and it was with great reluctance that Artemis found a place on the rug next to Desmond and his friends. However, complaining about the venue at his first (and only) meeting) would have been poorly received, so Artemis swallowed his pride and tried to not think too much about the cleanliness of the floor. As the meeting began, the upperclassmen leading the club motioned for side chatter to quiet down, and Desmond nudged Artemis, grinning. Artemis gave him a small, thin smile back, and Desmond turned away, pleased that Artemis appeared to be enjoying himself.

Artemis dropped the smile immediately.

It took perhaps an hour for Artemis to discern the most popular ghost stories that the club used as their claims to fame. First, the club alleged that in an opera put on in the early 50s, a lecturer visiting from Oxford was decapitated by a falling pastoral backdrop. Second, they also alleged that during a musical in the early 1920s, a performance involving various live sheep had resulted in a gruesome pile-up in the orchestra pit when the animals became spooked by one of the actors. Both incidents, the club leaders claimed, were responsible for at least half of the hauntings in the theatre department.

It took Artemis about five minutes of tinkering around on the mobile version of one of the school’s archive sites to confirm that neither of these incidents had ever occurred.

Although the earnestness with which the other students approached the club was amusing, Artemis soon grew bored. There was only so much whispering in a dimly lit room that he could tolerate, and tonight was rapidly approaching his limit. If anything, he was slightly cross with himself. What exactly had been expecting — for the club to have genuine proof of magic? He snorted. Although some of the members here were certainly fond of the aesthetic of the arcane, Dmitry-like they were decidedly  _ not. _ Idly, his fingers drifted towards the chain around his neck.

Toying with the necklace, he noted that the ring felt strangely warm. It stung his fingers in the same way touching metal with an electrical current running through it gave off small  _ zaps. _

The upperclassman at the front of the room clapped his hands, and Artemis released the chain.

“If anyone feels like they are not strong enough for the séance,” Charles began. “I would ask that you step out now.”

It was dark enough that Artemis wasn’t too worried about being told off for making a derisive face.

No one moved to leave, and so Charles continued. “Dan, if you’ll get the lights. Everybody, make sure you’re close enough to your neighbor to link hands later on.”

As the lights were dimmed, Artemis could hear the other boys snicker and begin to talk with low voices. Regardless of if you were a believer, there was something delightfully spooky about the performance Charles and the others were putting on.

Charles cleared his throat. “We, the Occult Society of Saint Bart’s, do extend our warmest welcome to any spirits extant in this place.”

Breathy whispers petered to a stop, and it felt as though the room was collectively holding its breath.

“We intend to communicate with you for the following hour, but this invocation shall be revoked if you show signs of wishing anyone in this room ill will. Our intentions are peaceful, and we request that you show us a sign and make yourself known to the degree to which you are able to.”

Charles looked around the room, and various members straightened to attention.

“Spirits, speak thee unto us?” the group announced, the voices in the room starting at different times and with varying degrees of confidence.

Quietly, a few people shuffled around, reaching for one another’s hands so as to create an unbroken circle of people in the room.

Very quaint, Artemis noted, not moving to join in. The ring around his neck was becoming uncomfortable, and he was eager to leave the meeting soon so as to have some time alone in the dormitory.

However, his roommate looked over, eyes wide. In the low lighting, the whites of everyone’s eyes almost glowed, and there was a sense of nervousness emanating from Desmond.

Of course he was afraid of ghosts, Artemis thought glumly. Desmond was exactly the sort of person to get roped into these types of situations.

Huffing slightly, Artemis linked his fingers together with Desmond’s. After a moment, Artemis extended his other hand to the boy sitting next to him. Desmond shot him a look of relief — if Artemis were to only hold his hand, it would be all the more obvious that Desmond had been seeking comfort, something the other boy would have been mortified over.

As Artemis’ fingers brushed against the fingers of his classmate sitting next to him, he felt the prick of static electricity at contact. Determined to soldier on, he laced their fingers together.

No sooner had he done so when the lights flickered completely out, cloaking the room in pitch-black darkness.

Sharp inhales and swears echoed around the room.

The sound of rustling grew louder as people scrambled to find their phones, and Charles tried to call out for people to remain calm. Whatever he’d been expecting as a clear sign from the otherworld, this certainly was not it.

Vaguely, Artemis was aware of all of this.

However, when he blinked and opened his eyes, everything around him was dark. His head was buzzing, and all the voices in the room sounded as if they were underwater.

When he opened his eyes again, he saw that his earlier assessment was right: all around him, he could see dark, still water. For a moment, his breath caught in surprise, but he was able to breathe just fine. Whatever he was seeing, he wasn’t physically experiencing the scene before him. Looking up, he saw the light of the sky filter down towards him, the water causing it to dapple across his face strangely. Slowly, a dark mass crept into view on the surface, and Artemis craned his neck to get a better look. Try as he might, he was unable to do anything but watch — he could neither move away from nor closer to the odd object up above.

The surface broke into an explosion of bubbles, and Artemis saw a figure diving down towards him.

A boat, Artemis realized. There was a rescue boat above him.

The man swimming down towards him was dressed in diving gear, and Artemis briefly wondered how the diver had known that someone would be underwater here. He didn’t have long to consider this, as the man moved quickly, reaching out and grabbing at Artemis’ arm. Or perhaps it wasn’t Artemis’ arm, but it was certainly  _ someone’s _ arm, and Artemis saw himself being dragged to the surface even if he couldn’t feel the man’s grip.

The world was still as they made their way upwards, almost like watching a movie without the audio playing.

Then they broke through the surface, and the world erupted into loud, angry voices.

Blinking, Artemis marveled at the group of men all huddled close together on the boat. They must’ve been about a kilometer off from the shore, and they were all bundled up with as much winter gear as they could wear.

Sensing the man next to him in the water shift, Artemis turned to see his rescuer rip off his diving mask.

_ “On zhil,”  _ the man spat out in a thick Russian accent, wiping the wetness from his mouth with the back of his hand brusquely. “He lived. Help me get out of the water and get Britva on the line.”

One of the men on the boat laughed, but he did not move. “ Mikhael, you look madder than my mother-in-law’s poor cat when it gets left out in the rain.”

Mikhael let out a series of what Artemis assumed to be Russian expletives.

“Where’s the big one?”

“What?” Mikhael sneered. “Fowl was the one we needed. I’m not going diving for any more lost souls.”

The man from before shrugged. “The Major could be helpful as well.”

“He did his job: he died or was injured protecting his boss. He has no worth whatsoever in negotiations, and I’m not going looking for his body just so we can send condolences to his family. Get me and the  _ irlandets _ in the boat and  _ call Britva _ .”

Artemis’ eyes widened and he opened his mouth, but no words came out.

Desmond snapped his fingers in front of Artemis’ face, and he flinched.

“Oy.”

All at once, the office came back into view with dizzying speed.

Artemis scrambled backward, desperately looking around for any trace of the scene he’d just been watching unfold. However, the only thing around him was the club, and Artemis felt his heart sink.

“What did you  _ do? _ ” Artemis hissed, equally horrified and incensed that Desmond had broken the spell.

Desmond looked unsure, and Artemis could feel the eyes of everyone in the room lock onto them.

Clearing his throat, Artemis flushed.

Awkwardly, he rose to his feet, bowing his head slightly in apology to the room.

“I am sorry for making a scene,” he struggled to get out, forcing his voice to remain even-toned. “I — I don’t usually go to these types of…” his lip curled. “Meetings.”

A few members let out half-hearted acknowledgments of the apology, and Desmond shook his head emphatically to indicate that it was fine.

Turning on his heels, Artemis made his leave, not waiting for any further responses.

Desmond called out, but Artemis ignored it. 

In the end, he wasn’t followed.

As Artemis made his way back to the dorms, he forced himself to breathe.

Whatever it had been that he’d seen, he knew it wasn’t simply a hallucination. It was too detailed. No,  _ whatever _ it was that he’d seen, he thought, the cool breeze calming his heart rate somewhat, it had been real.

He had seen what had happened to his father.

The wind kicked up leaves as he walked, and Artemis reached for the necklace around his neck, unclasping it and pulling the ring off the chain. As he slipped the ring onto his thumb, he twisted it, thinking.

Britva.

Artemis had a name.

Now the planning could begin.

* * *

During the months leading up to Artemis’ birth, the Major remembered the constant sense of dread that had tainted his waking hours. He couldn’t help but feel like a man on death row. His end would not be heralded in by death, however — it would be brought about by life.

When Angeline gave birth to the child, her presence in the house would be permanent. Once there was a Fowl heir, the Major knew that she was here to stay.

She’d never done anything outright strange. When his boss had exploded at him, demanding he explain why he’d been so hesitant to welcome Angeline into the Fowl family, the Major had not had any explanation to give Artemis. The only real, concrete example the Major could provide for his distaste was the speed at which this relationship had blossomed. It felt like the Major barely had any time to right himself after Artemis had met the woman at some party and then declared that he was going to be with her. They’d said their vows later that year, and the Major’s feeling of unease had worsened.

Now she was going to have a child.

It was all just too much.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he nearly collided with one of the maids. She began stuttering out apologies, and he waved a hand, indicating it was of no great import. The poor woman skittered off, and the Major sighed.

He continued making his way down the hall, his ears pricking at the sound of a woman humming lightly.

He pursed his lips.

Angeline.

Reluctantly, he poked his head into the kitchen, and sure enough, the woman was seated at the table. She raised an eyebrow at his presence, taking a deep sip from the cup of tea she’d been drinking.

“Major,” she remarked. “What a pleasant surprise.”

Keeping his face blank, the Major nodded his head curtly. “Is there anything I can help with, Angeline?”

She tilted her head slightly, thinking as she drummed her long, tapered fingers against the china of the teacup. “I take it that my husband is home, then, if you’re back.”

The Major entered the kitchen fully, moving to stand by the table. “I’m afraid not. He’s still finishing up some business, but he’ll be home within the next few hours. Why?”

She laughed gently, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “I miss him, that’s all. He must’ve sent you because he was worried about me being home alone.”

“How considerate of him,” the Major droned, turning his body slightly towards the door.

“I don’t see how you being here would make that much of a difference, though,” she said absentmindedly, more to herself than to him.

The Major started. “Excuse me?”

Angeline looked up, startled. “Hm?”

He looked at her curiously. “Do you think you’re in danger here?”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry. Ignore me.”

“I know it’s a stressful time with the pregnancy, but I promise that you are most likely the best defended woman in all of Ireland right now.”

“Defended by someone who doesn’t care for me all that much,” she pointed out, and the Major blinked, uncomprehending.

“Major,” she began again. “Why don’t you like me?”

His mouth opened, but he snapped it shut again. Perhaps if he were twenty years younger, he would have shrugged. There was really no way to respond to such a question, particularly when he didn’t know the answer to it himself.

“I promised your husband I would keep you safe,” he said finally. “Whether or not I like you is unimportant.”

She seemed pleased by his answer. “Good. You’re honest. I appreciate that.”

Angeline locked eyes with him, and the Major almost flinched. It was a challenge, and not an empty one, either.

­­­­­­­­­After a pause, Angeline took a sip of her tea, still watching the Major.

“Everything about you fits well, Major. Beginning, middle, and end. All tied up so neatly.”

Warily, the Major turned away from the door. “I’m not a man who likes metaphors. If you’ve got a problem, say what you mean.”

“I did,” she responded. “Your family lives lives that fit them well. That was all I meant.”

If having her husband out of the house meant Angeline was going to act like a complete nutcase, the Major thought derisively, then this was the last time he was going to be caught playing bodyguard to her while his boss finished up business.

“Alright,” he finally said. “If you say so.”

Her smile widened. “You don’t want to know more?”

“Not particularly,” he retorted, letting as much distaste slip into his tone as he could get away with.

“Not even if it concerned your niece and nephew?” she wondered, eyes lighting up when she saw him tense.

She’d got him.

“What about my niece and nephew?” he forced out, no longer amused by her strangeness.

“You seem put off,” Angeline backtracked. “I didn’t mean to bring up such a sensitive topic.”

Flustered, he blinked. “What — why would it be a sensitive topic for me? They’re fine.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “I was just — I was just thinking too much, that’s all. Again, I apologize. This isn’t a fitting topic for afternoon tea.”

She looked at him, and the Major could feel himself at a crossroads. He somehow could sense that if he left the kitchen now, they could go on with their lives pretending this had never happened. It would be easy for them to do that. He hardly interacted with her much as it was.

But at the same time…

He couldn’t let this go, he decided, his earlier feeling of impending doom coiling around his stomach like a snake. He needed to know he wasn’t losing his mind.

He had to know what exactly was wrong with her.

Slowly, he pulled out a chair and sat down.

Angeline looked satisfied at having successfully enticed him, and the Major forcibly banished the scowl threatening to form upon his face.

“Your nephew,” she began, swirling the leaves of tea at the bottom of her cup. “He’s not fit for the job.”

The Major snorted at that. “He’s the best damn trainee to come out of Madame Ko’s school in years.”

She nodded, conceding the point. “Maybe. But at the same time, he’s too… soft. Too sweet. He’ll never be able to fully harden his emotions against the world.”

She looked up, a faint trace of amusement dancing across her eyes. “He’ll die of a bullet to the heart. He breathes his last breath surrounded by confections, and he goes to his grave knowing he broke one of the core rules in his training.”

The Major twitched.

But he remained in his seat. He’d made up his mind to stay to the end.

“Too soft. Too sweet. Done in by his heart. Irony.”

“Now, you,” she continued, knitting her brows together. Straightening, she ran her tongue over her teeth. In the light, her canines glinted. “You… you chose to serve in the air force during your training because you hate the open ocean.”

He nodded.

“You die at sea.”

“Do I.”

The Major said it not as a question, but as a statement. As a challenge.

Angeline nodded. “And with Juliet—”

The Major stood up, the sound of the legs of the chair scraping against the wood making a shrill noise. “I think that’s enough.”

He didn’t care whether or not cutting her off meant that she won the weird mind-games they were playing with one another. He was done listening.

Angeline showed no signs of disappointment at having her fun ended early. Setting her cup gently upon the saucer, she pushed it towards him.

“I’ll leave this for you, if that’s alright” she said, getting up to excuse herself from the table. Her smile was pulled into a thin line. “You are the butler, after all.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi sorry it has been so long since an update!! I hope this chapter finds people as safe and well as they are able to be. I'm sorry it's rather short, but it's what I was able to carve out time for over the last weekend. This fic is definitely not abandoned — just a bit of a victim of my college's workload. As always, reviews are appreciated if one feels comfortable, but if not, I'll just see you all next chapter!

“I don’t want to have the terrible limitation of those who live merely from what can make sense. Not I: I want an invented truth.”

\- Clarice Lispector, Água Viva

[W]hen you tell the truth, that’s the end of it; lies, on the other hand, ramify in all sorts of unexpected directions, complicating things, knotting them up in themselves, thickening the texture of life. Lying makes a dull world more interesting. To lie is to create”

\- John Banville.

Hypothetical syllogism: ((p→q)(q→r))⊦(p→r)

(If _ p _ then _ q _ ; if _ q _ then _ r _ ; therefore, if _ p _ then _ r _)

* * *

Lies and truth were to be mixed together liberally. The more your narrative is reinforced by technical veracity and partial admissions, the more it holds up under inspection. False openness to avoid complete honesty should be the crux of your argument. Red herrings to distract from red flags are a must. Information, especially how much of it you seem to have, needs to confuse, rather than clarify; you have the winning hand, it’s just that those on your side don’t yet understand the rules of the game — and they must think that they _ won’t _ be able to understand those rules. 

This was Artemis’ understanding of the trials that lay before him.

Once Butler had promised to continue working for the Fowls until Artemis was at least 18, Artemis’ plan had been set into motion. Although the journey that lay ahead was uncertain, to know that his bodyguard would at least be by his side in the meantime meant that even if this was to be the lowest point of disgrace from which Artemis would have to claw the family legacy, it was not a lost cause.

The next important piece of business to which Artemis had to attend was that contrary to the legal declaration, his father was still alive. Or at least, his father had been alive when he had been fished out of the Murmansk Fjord. Artemis did not yet fully understand how he had harnessed magic to spy on what had transpired miles and miles away out at sea, and he had an inkling of a notion that had he been consciously in control of his magic while doing so, he would have soon found the Council darkening his doorstep. 

He almost snorted. Perhaps they would have taken care of him as they had Dmitry.

Shaking his head, Artemis banished such thoughts from his mind. It didn’t do to dwell on such matters. 

However, as much as he was loath to admit it, Artemis found himself stuck. Magic had revealed that Father had survived, and it was likely that magic would be the only way that Artemis and the Butlers would stand a chance against whatever organization had sunk the Fowl Star. 

And _ yet _…

Artemis could not wield any further magic. Well, he paused. He supposed he was _ able_, regardless of the loss of Dmitry’s equipment.

There were two factors that had led him to forgo the use of magic.

The first required little explanation.

The Council. 

He hardly wanted to spark their interest, particularly after unceremoniously announcing that he didn’t intend to matriculate into their little secret society. The usage of magic in the pursuit of the realization of his goals would be seen as a cause for intrigue at best, and cause for offense at worst.

The second had only recently occurred to Artemis, but the more that he thought about the matter, the more he realized this was perhaps as important to monitor as the Council.

Butler.

The reality of the world in which they lived was that for Artemis to continue operating as he pleased, he needed an adult whose proxy he appeared to serve as. Hence, Butler. The man was also helpful for more mundane affairs — with Mother indisposed, having someone else in the house who could help with the estate and provide the comfort of cooking meals now and then was something for which Artemis could not fully express the extent of his gratitude. To lose the presence of his bodyguard in his day-to-day life would be devastating, both from a strategic and sentimental standpoint. 

Artemis prided himself on knowing people. Particularly, he knew Butler. Above all else, Butler despised deception. 

Artemis’ personal involvement with the supernatural was not only littered with lies here and there that he had fed to Butler to keep him from prying, rather, his personal involvement was fundamentally a deception. To reveal that not only did magic exist, but that he himself was indelibly _ changed _ by his delving into its world would demonstrate that Artemis had not cared to share that the version of reality under which the majority of humanity operated was a lie. It went beyond petty falsehoods. Artemis had participated — had facilitated, even — a kind of deception that was almost ontological in nature; it was a lie about the nature of being. 

When he was to broach the topic of magic with Butler, it was to be as though he was discovering it for the first time, too. Most importantly, Artemis could not admit to having (or rather, _ being _) magic.

How he was to achieve all of this remained a mystery. His goals seemed predicated on contradictory conditions. At the same time, he could not allow himself to consider failure as an option. He would have to be careful in his maneuvering, but the longer he waited to act, the harder it would be. 

Artemis was grateful that he had had the presence of mind to not mention the strange creature Kronski had captured to the Council. Regardless of whoever — or rather, whatever— he had been, one thing was certain: the man was magic.

If Artemis was lucky, then perhaps that magic was a secret one, tucked away from the prying eyes of those like Dmitry. For a strange moment, Artemis was reminded of the fairy tales his father had told him back when he was young — those stories had magic in them, the proper kind. He wasn’t a betting man, but Artemis was willing to wager that Butler had at least heard of some of those myths, too. 

There’s nothing more familiar than a fairy tale. At their core, they are one of the most powerful links to childhood. People grow old, but they never quite forget how they felt hearing those stories for the first time.

The best lies are the ones that seem to contain familiar, intuitive truths.

* * *

Holly idly flicked through her computer’s inbox, pointedly ignoring the series of unread messages from Foaly. He’d become even more paranoid than usual — each new security job that he would be handed was treated like it was the prelude to the Mud Men finally discovering they were a little less alone in the universe than they had initially assumed.

Briefly, she wondered if it might have something to do with the time of the year; the LEP were always swamped around the solstices, as more and more of the People would sneak topside to perform the Ritual under the night sky. Just this week, she’d noticed a massive spike in the tickets she’d had to issue. Getting a call from one of the main shuttle port’s security offices that Diggums had been booked for sneaking around the terminal after dark had been strangely comforting; the familiarity of Mulch getting into pointless scuffles and disturbances was appreciated after having to deal with Foaly treating each and every bit of news the LEP received as a potential omen of the end times. Mulch had hardly complained when she’d issued him a loitering notice, and she’d ended her shift on a high note.

Holly frowned. Fairies going topside meant that any legitimate requests on her end to go aboveground would be discarded. It wasn’t… that pressing, but her magic was running lower than she’d prefer. 

Still, she frowned. Maybe it was for the best. Root would probably throw a fit if he found out how long it had been since she’d last completed the Ritual. 


	9. Chapter 9

"The corruption begins with the mouth,  
the tongue, the wanting.  
The first poem in the world  
is _I want to eat_."

written by Erica Jong, from “Where It Begins,” Fruits & Vegetables: Poems By Erica Jong (Holt, 1971)

* * *

Butler sat down gingerly in the late Artemis Senior’s office, trying to not be disquieted by the eerie glow that the screens of dozens of computers cast about the room from their position perched on the floor-to-ceiling shelves. They’d all been muted, but Butler could make out the logo of various news networks that would briefly flash as the devices trawled the net. The computers were the only new thing in the office — aside from a small set of technical upgrades, Artemis had left the room nearly identical to how his father had preferred it.

It felt like one of the meticulously preserved rooms in historical houses. Maybe someone had lived in it once, but the interior had remained too static, too uninhabited to seem lived in. 

Artemis was busy shuffling about a set of papers at the dark oak desk. His spirits had seemed better after he’d returned home for the summer holidays. 

Finally, Artemis seemed satisfied with his notes. Looking up, he nodded curtly at Butler, signaling that their meeting was about to begin.

“You think my father died in the Fowl Star accident,” Artemis said matter-of-factly, his face betraying no discomfort with speaking so frankly regarding the topic.

Butler didn’t even flinch. Artemis waited for him to respond, quirking an eyebrow.

“You don’t think the same,” Butler said after a moment. 

A statement. To phrase it as a question would have been pointless.

Artemis seemed pleased. “Correct.”

“Alright. I can have a list of my contacts in Russia for you by this evening. They could—”

Artemis waved him off, leaning forward. “I have a question for you, and I would appreciate it if you answer me seriously. Would that be alright?”

Butler remained silent, studying his charge’s face.

Suddenly, Artemis almost seemed shy. The tips of his ears had reddened slightly, and were the boy anyone else, Butler would have said that he was hesitating.

In a blink, any sign of uncertainty was wiped from Artemis’ face, as though it had merely been a trick of the light. 

“Would you say that you believe in the supernatural?”

Butler was so surprised that he almost laughed.

Clearing his throat to conceal any hint of the sound, he floundered for the right words.

Across from him, Artemis watched him, patiently waiting.

“I’m not particularly superstitious, no,” he said finally, not liking where the conversation was going. 

“Supernatural, Butler, not superstitious,” Artemis corrected. “As in — do you believe there are powers in this world that exist beyond the mundane?”

“No,” Butler replied. “But I take it that you do.”

“If you’ll lend me your ear for a moment, perhaps I can sway you to see things from my perspective,” Artemis offered.

Butler nodded, stricken by an almost morbid curiosity to hear what Artemis would say. His thoughts kept drifting back to Angeline and her rapid decline. If the same potential for decay existed within Artemis’ mind, Butler wondered if his, too, would be sudden, or if perhaps it would slowly creep up on his charge, bit by bit. 

It wasn’t a pleasant thought. 

He let none of his musings, however, show. 

“Lebor Gabála Érenn, or the Book of Invasions, is what I put forth as my first piece of evidence,” Artemis remarked, pushing a set of stapled pieces of paper towards his bodyguard. “It details the oral history surrounding Ireland’s religion before the Norman invasion brought the advent of Christianity to the island’s shores. I’ve annotated the parts that specifically deal with the six groups that settled Ireland, although you really ought only read the parts on the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Milesians.” 

Butler gingerly accepted the document. 

Artemis soldiered on, sensing Butler’s apprehension and not wanting to give him the opportunity to dismiss the conversion.

“Next, I would put forth Robert Kirk’s _The Secret Commonwealth_, a late 17th-century text that details his and his community’s understanding of the fae folk—”

“Fae? As in fairies?” Butler looked up from the papers he was looking through, trying not to let his expression look too pained.

“Yes.”

Butler allowed himself a sigh, pursing his lips as his eyes flicked back down to what he had been reading. “I see.”

“These siths, or faeries,” Artemis began, not needing to reference his assorted documents. “Are said to be of a middle Nature betwixt Man and Angel, as were Dæmons thought to be of old; of intelligent fluidious Spirits, and light changeable Bodies. Their Bodies enter into any cranny or cleft of the Earth where Air enters, to their ordinary Dwellings; the Earth being full of cavities and cells, and there being no Place nor Creature but is supposed to have other animals (greater or lesser) living in or upon it as inhabitants; and no such thing as a pure wilderness in the whole Universe. End quotation.”

Artemis steepled his fingers. “Kirk’s book was in large part based on a series of interviews he did with other members of his town. Even if we were to set aside his work, the same characteristics appear again across centuries and across civilizations. First, there exist diminutive creatures with mysterious abilities. Second, they are diminished in power from days of yore and now inhabit subterranean dwellings. Finally, and most important, might I add, they have an… affinity for granting boons to those who best them — particularly those who best them in a game of wits.”

Butler wrestled with his thoughts for a moment.

It was a lot to take in.

“Now, one could doubt my hypothesis,” Artemis conceded.

Substituting ‘one’ for ‘you’ was the polite way to say that, Butler noted. 

“After all, the Jungian perspective on those similarities would be that they point towards the human need to explore certain hopes and fears through narrative, and that these hopes and fears can be represented by a similar symbolic language.”

“One could say that,” Butler agreed. 

“I would counter by saying that it goes beyond that, however. Many of the similarities in description don’t come from folklore, rather, they come from purported sightings — these are sightings that lack the meaning that the narrative structure of myth would impose upon them. They don’t fit into any greater tale of morality or safety… they just _are_.”

Artemis now took the opportunity to pick up a folder. He opened it, revealing pages upon pages of images of varying quality. Hands shaking slightly, he pushed it to the center of the desk so that both he and Butler might look upon it. 

“See,” he stressed, spreading the papers out across the surface. “Years ago, mere testimony was all we had to go on. But we are in a new age — the age of the internet. Not even miles of stone and soil can conceal these beings from humanity’s eye. There’s a reason that a synonym for ‘to photograph’ is ‘to capture’.”

Butler’s brow had become increasingly furrowed as he examined the photos laid out before him.

None of the images were in HD. In fact, many only caught blurred shapes. However…

Butler frowned.

There were similar hints of form. A similar… oddness pervaded the photos. Any single one, he could have dismissed. But the pattern that was emerging made it difficult to just ignore Artemis’ work as mere evidence of a retreat into the safety of childhood fantasy. It seemed that just as Butler would closely examine one image, his eyes would be drawn to one near it; his gaze would be torn away from the first before he was able to figure out if he believed something magical lurked within its confines.

Artemis must have sensed his relenting, as he continued his coaxing.

“Why must it be impossible?” Artemis tried. “The duration of time during which humanity believed in magic is far longer than the span of time that encompasses when we decided to discard that faith.”

“I never took you for someone who would argue for tradition for tradition’s sake,” Butler murmured, picking up one of the photos to compare it to another.

Artemis cocked his head. “Then I’ll present a different argument: just because we don’t yet understand something doesn’t make it nonsense. Do you intuitively understand why you don’t float off the surface of the Earth? Yes, it’s because of how a large mass exhibits an attractive force on smaller objects close by, but do you understand _why_ that attraction is typical of objects with large mass? Why it's a consequence of the curvature of spacetime, which is in turn caused by unequal distribution of mass? Can you even fathom what ‘the curvature of spacetime’ means? Why is _that_ able to be assimilated into your understanding of reality, while magic must be discarded?”

Artemis pushed some of the papers away, growing increasingly animated. “Even using the word ‘magic’ to describe phenomena we have decided must be discarded privileges us against considering whether it exists on our own terms. If it pleases you, I won’t call it ‘magic’ and I won’t call these creatures ‘fairies’ — after all, those are just the names we gave those categories, rather than their proper nomenclature, anyways — but I must ask you to consider the evidence!”  
  
The room fell silent. 

Butler considered opening his mouth to say something, but he decided against it. He looked back at the image he held in his hand, wishing for the thousandth time that he could stop things from falling apart all around him.

The longer Butler stared at the picture before him, the more it seemed a gnarled, green hand was extending from the shadows of the photo.  
“I—” he began, and anticipation seemed to roll off of Artemis in waves. “I can ask around about this... stuff. See if we might find any leads.”

“Wonderful,” Artemis smiled. “Why don’t we compare our list of contacts?”

Butler blinked. “Like who? Why do you—”

“After dinner, maybe,” Artemis interjected, stopping his bodyguard’s line of inquiry.

The feeling of being out of his depth ever-increasing, Butler rose to leave. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear more about this subject for a while.

“Until dinner, then.”

* * *

It had taken some time for Artemis to realize that his goal was to ultimately kidnap a fairy.

He’d have to be careful about doing so, as he was keen to avoid an untimely death before he could rescue his father, but it was the only course of action that made sense. Any individual fairy might not have much to give were he to best them in a game of wits, but an entire civilization? The collective wealth that he could win was far greater. 

His plans had led him to chase dead ends all the way from Germany to Egypt, but today, he found himself in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, desperately hoping that he was enduring the sweltering heat for a good cause. 

The patio umbrella on the sidewalk by the Café du Roi did little to shield him from the sun, and Artemis felt his mood darken. He didn’t much care for the sun. It didn’t suit him. 

A man dressed in black slacks and a white apron made his way over with a set of menus in hand. Artemis’ eyes were drawn to the man’s hands.

The skin that lay beneath his shirt sleeve and the skin of his hands matched — he lacked the tan line that wearing the same uniform each day while running orders in the sun would cause. Further, there was a softness to his hands that implied fastidious manicuring. Perhaps most damning was the triplet set of ornate rings that adorned his fingers.

“Now, what may I get for you two fine sirs on this beautiful day?” 

“Mr. Nguyễn Xuan,” Artemis said, voice soft and tone clipped. “I believe we agreed to meet at noon — you’re already almost a minute late.”

The man started. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken.”

He set the menus down, gesturing to the embossed name tag adorning the left breast of his white button-down shirt. “My name is Hai. If you’d like me to put in your order—”

“Please don’t take me for a fool, Mr. Xuan. It’s a rather poor first impression to leave,” Artemis remarked, pointedly glancing at the man’s expensive jewelry. 

The man hesitated, mulling over what his next course of action would be.

“And because neither myself nor my bodyguard is a fool,” Artemis continued. “We have made sure to take the… necessary precautions before arriving today.”

“Besides,” Artemis sighed. “Your disguise would be hardly convincing, even had our informant neglected to give a description of your appearance.” 

For the first time since they’d arrived at the café, Butler spoke. “Justin Barre isn’t a man to mince words.”

Nguyễn Xuan seemed to deflate. “Barre. I should have guessed.”

“Won’t you sit?” Artemis asked, gesturing to one of the seats around the glass table. “We would prefer to get on with business.”

Finally, Xuan sat down. His gaze kept drifting to where Butler was, and Artemis pursed his lips.

“You needn’t wonder — I’ll tell you. He is armed.”

“I do believe I’ve heard about you before, Mr. Butler,” Xuan said, his eyebrows knitting together in thought. “You’re somewhat infamous, I’m afraid. I must ask, however, do you—”

“Of course I have the Sig Sauer, Xuan.”

“Ah,” Xuan started, uncomfortable. “I see.”

Still, he continued.

“And you,” he said, glancing at Artemis.

Artemis was used to being regarded with disdain by his father’s peers. It was all too common to be treated like a starry-eyed nitwit that had been allowed to tag along. Interestingly, Xuan’s gaze lacked the doubt Artemis was used to by now when he did business. 

Rather, Xuan seemed to regard him with cool trepidation. 

“You’re the Fowl boy, no?”

“I’m the Fowl heir,” Artemis announced lightly, not willing to let his satisfaction at being taken seriously turn into preening.

“It’s a pity what happened to your father,” Xuan carried on, carefully trying to get a feel for the two individuals in front of him.

“Indeed,” Artemis said, nodding. “However, I am not here today for pity. Mr. Xuan, let us proceed to the matter at hand.”

Xuan nodded curtly, reaching into his breast pocket to produce a polaroid picture. 

Trying not to appear too eager, Artemis took the photo from the older man. By now, he’d trawled through enough information about the fairy folk that he was able to tell whether what he was being presented was a hoax once he was at or near the site. During both the Germany and Egypt trips, he’d signaled to Butler to get their things and leave after less than ten minutes of talking to their contact.

Dmitry’s guidance on knowing how to sense the inherent… difference between magical and non-magical things was also helpful, undoubtedly.

Artemis could sense Butler’s gaze boring down upon him, and Artemis looked up, nodding. Xuan seemed to misinterpret the interaction as an indication that he could be losing his customers, so he gestured again at the photo.

“You can make out her hand here if you look closely — she hates being photographed. She’s constantly lurking down in the dark corners by the Saigon River, and when I sent one of my men to try to lure her out, she attacked him before scampering off.”

Artemis nodded, not letting his thoughts show on his face. “Would you happen to know where she’s run off to now?”

Xuan shrugged, tugging at his collar. “She’s difficult to predict with ease. All the same, if I were a betting man, I would guess she’s near one of her typical haunts, like one of the abandoned houseboats. It’s tucked enough away from prying eyes that the city hasn’t yet gotten around to removing it.”

With that, Butler rose, and Artemis soon followed.

“Thank you, Mr. Xuan,” Artemis said, smiling genuinely for the first time in a while. 

He was one of the kinds of people who had a smile that reminded one that for most creatures, the expression was a sign of aggression. 

A chill ran down Nguyễn Xuan’s spine, and he suddenly realized too late that he’d said too much. He felt himself be guided towards the four-wheel-drive parked at the end of the street corner, the looming presence of the young man’s bodyguard making the hairs on the back of his neck prick up. 

Perhaps next time, he would ignore the seemingly too-good-to-be-true jobs that found their way to his inbox. 

* * *

It was cooler down by the river, Artemis noted, appreciating the slight drop in temperature. By now, they were far enough from the main road that the distant hum of mopeds and foot traffic was but a memory. To reach the houseboat that Nguyễn Xuan had mentioned, they’d had to abandon the car and traverse the rest of the distance on foot. The sun beat down on them from overhead, and by the time they’d reached the dilapidated structure of the shored houseboat, Artemis was bordering on exhausted. 

The houseboat was a strange thing. It was much smaller than Artemis has expected, being barely larger than an outhouse in length and width. Although, he supposed the fairy didn’t require as much space as a human being would. There was also… something about it that made him want to turn around, almost as if compelled to abandon months and months of work on a mere whim.

His eyes narrowed. It still had some tricks at its disposal, then.

Behind him, he could sense Butler growing restless. Turning, Artemis faced his bodyguard and a very agitated looking Xuan.

“Your services have helped me more than you can know,” Artemis said, and Butler almost seemed surprised, but the man nonetheless reached into his coat for a large, manilla envelope.

“Your payment is all in order,” Butler said, tone brokering no disagreement. It was in order — all seventy one-hundred-dollar bills. Mr. Xuan didn’t much bother to check, muttering a brief goodbye before quickly hurrying on his way back to the series of alleys they’d traveled through to reach the clearing.

Cautiously, he stepped forward. “Hello,” he called out. “I’m here to inquire about—”

Before he could continue, the sound of frenzied rustling echoed dimly from inside the building. 

Butler stepped forward, on edge, but Artemis waved him off.

“I see you’re home,” he said, almost amused. “Might we talk?” 

A decrepit hand curled out of one of the missing slats in the houseboat. “English?”

“Irish, actually,” Artemis murmured, stepping closer. “Might I have your name?”

A laugh that sounded like the barking of a dog pealed out. “You’re funny! I like the funny ones. But no, mud man, you cannot have my name.”

The hand withdrew from the opening in the wall, replaced by a pair of luminous eyes. The irises were a striking pale grey, but the pupils were slits, almost like a cat’s. 

“Unless you want to give me yours. Are you here to trade?”

Butler stepped closer to Artemis, ready to shield the boy at a moment’s notice.

“I’m here to trade, but not with our names,” Artemis said. 

Precision in language was a must.

“What do you have?” the voice squawked.

Reaching into his pocket, Artemis produced a thin, glass vial.

“A way back home.”

The fairy fell silent. “Home?” she said after a moment. “This is my home, human.”

Artemis hummed. “I don’t think so.”

For a second, it seemed like whatever was in the houseboat had vanished.

Artemis held his breath, waiting.

Slowly, the door creaked open.

Lingering in the doorway, a small figure was shrouded by shadow. It was slender and bony in all the ways humans weren’t, and Artemis felt a rush of adrenaline course through his veins. 

“Maybe so,” the small creature said, brushing a scraggly strand of hair out of its face. “But why should I want to go back?”

For the first time that day, Artemis was given pause.

He’d not expected that possibility.

Quickly, he recovered.

“Perhaps you don’t wish to return home,” Artemis said lightly. “But I would assume you miss who you were when you were allowed ‘home’. The power coursing through your veins. The lack of reliance on petty deals with whatever human stumbles past your wards.”

  
The creature stared at him, and Artemis wracked his brain for something else to say.

“Say,” he finally said, a sly note worming its way into his tone. “Don’t you miss being able to fly?”

The fairy’s face contorted into an expression of rage. “Tó Mal’ailc’t” she spat, and it didn’t take a genius to infer that Artemis was being cursed at.

He held out the vial, careful to keep it away from the threshold of her home. “I only ask for half an hour with your Book.”

The fairy paused its fuming, regarding him with distrust.

“What do you have to lose?” Artemis wheedled, holding the vial out a little farther. “Humans can’t read what was written by fairy hand. What risk does giving us but a moment pose?”

“You lie,” the fairy said after a moment, gaze moving towards Butler.

Artemis did not want any further specificity to be provided about how much of his statement was false. Particularly regarding the qualifier he’d added that pertained to human eyes.

“Fifteen minutes,” he tried, and her gaze snapped back to him.

For a moment, it seemed like she was going to slam the door shut.

“Fifteen minutes,” she conceded, gritting her teeth. “No more.”

* * *

The ride back to the airport was tense. 

Butler had spent most of the trek back to the car in stony silence. Briefly, Artemis had considered asking what Butler had thought of the fairy, but he eventually decided against that, opting instead to check and double-check that the file of the Book’s pages had reached his email successfully.

It was almost evening, and the rows of shops and buildings lining the streets seemed to come alive. As the sun was nearing the horizon, the heat of the day was fading into the hazy warmth of night. Even though the windows of the car were closed, Artemis could smell the breeze that carried the intermingling scents of cooking food and the petrol from the vehicles dotting the road. 

Allowing himself a brief moment of respite, Artemis leaned against the car window, exhaling. Butler barely reacted, his eyes remaining locked on the street.

“Thank you,” Artemis said, the sound halfway to a yawn. “These past month has been full of disappointments, but today was a change in our luck. We’re close. I know it.”

Butler simply nodded, but his grip on the wheel softened.

“I wouldn’t want anyone else by my side as we approach the culmination of all this work,” Artemis added, feeling uncharacteristically sentimental.

Finally, Butler looked over, his expression inscrutable.

“Get some rest,” he said. “It’ll be some time before we need to board our flight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's start with the poem — I love the duality of the mouth being a site of creation and destruction (i.e. speech and consumption), as well as the use of hunger as a metaphor (i.e. "I want to eat" as not just literal hunger, but a desire to consume, to own, to realize own's ambitions). 
> 
> Side note, robert kirk’s The Secret Commonwealth is… the Worst in that it is so difficult to read skdhfskj if my english teachers in high school hadnt pushed chaucer i would have been up shit creek without a paddle lmao. @ authors who used to use “f” instead of “s” in some places: perish.
> 
> Moving on from the epigraph, I really wanted to rework the Ho Chi Minh City scene because there were many elements of it that felt very reminiscent of classical Western literature’s problem with creating a binary within fictional depictions of “the West” versus “the East” (Edward Saïd wrote extensively on this). The first AF book was published in 2001, and in many ways, it is an artifact of that time. I think it would be lazy and disrespectful as someone who is rewriting book 1 in 2020 to just reproduce everything from the first book, and as such, I tweaked some areas based on some reading I have done. Those changes don’t really have to do with the fact this fanfic is an AU — they’re just intended to be more of an updated version of certain elements of book 1 that combines the tone of writing I'm using for this fic. 
> 
> What do I recommend you check out if you want to learn more about Vietnam? First I have to plug Trinh T Minh-Ha’s documentary “Forgetting Vietnam” and an interview she did with Lucie Kim-Chi Mercier. Her film making process is beautiful, and I found the following quote to kind of inform how I approached trying to improve my own perception of what the idea of Vietnam (culturally, in terms of people, economically, etc) can encompass: “I’m not interested at all in ‘covering a story’ – an individual’s story or an individualist subject. I never work that way. I’d rather come into places and events with questions like: What characterises a culture? What is its everyday reality? What leads a country to be seen as such? And importantly, how do we show and tell (from what position, with what tools)?”
> 
> Another article I would recommend is the website Vietcetera’s “A Guide to Ho Chi Minh City’s Districts: Understanding the City”, as that helped me to understand the layout and general idea of the parts of the city. One thing that I *think* is incorrect is that at one point, Artemis and Butler are outside a café on Dong Khoi street, but later they travel to Tự Do street — what I kept seeing was that Tự Do was the first name of the street, but that it was eventually renamed Dong Khoi i.e. they are one and the same. Further, Dong Khoi falls within district one of HCMC, which (including district two) is one of the wealthier locations in the city. I think the narration that implies Tự Do (if we briefly pretend it is a separate place than Dong Khoi) is particularly impoverished + full of petty crime does so because of Tự Do’s (rather than Dong Khoi’s) reputation. After the departure of French rule in 1954, President Diem renamed Rue Catinat to Tự Do, and between 1954-1975, the street became notorious for being where American GI’s would hit the bars or have dalliances with women — it gained a fairly sleazy reputation. With the fall of Saigon in 1975, the street was again renamed, this time to Dong Khoi, and its connection to the financial heart of HCMC means that the roads are peppered with fairly high-end stores and restaurants as of post-2000s. I obviously don’t want to fall into the either-or binary of depicting a place as wholly good or bad due to the fact I am approaching the task of representing a place I didn’t grow up or spend time in, so hopefully this chapter + this history lesson kind of underpins that my goal was to write HCMC as just a city. I also thought it might be interesting to use the fact that Dong Khoi is close to the Saigon River (tho’ there aren’t any 100+ year oaks near it) to inform why the sprite from book 1 decided to make her home there.
> 
> But again, I’m going to be limited by the fact that I live in America and my understanding is informed by what videos, documentaries, and books put forth as the dominant Vietnamese experience, meaning that I may not have a familiarity with experiences that are more local rather than national/not generalizable by region (such as what the experience might be in more affluent regions of Hanoi as opposed to more rural provinces like Dong Thap). Feel free to check out some of the sources yourself, and if I’ve misstepped, please let me know if you’re willing!
> 
> As always, reviews are appreciated, and I hope everyone is well!


	10. Chapter 10

"O then at last relent: is there no place  
Left for Repentance, none for Pardon left?  
None left but by submission; and that word  
DISDAIN forbids me, and my dread of shame  
Among the spirits beneath, whom I seduc'd  
With other promises and other vaunts  
Then to submit, boasting I could subdue  
Th' Omnipotent. Ay me, they little know  
How dearly I abide that boast so vaine,  
Under what torments inwardly I groane;  
While they adore me on the Throne of Hell,  
With Diadem and Scepter high advanc'd  
The lower still I fall, onely Supream  
In misery."

_ Paradise _ _ Lost_, Book IV

\- John Milton 

* * *

There are few fairies who can say they’ve faced off against a troll and escaped relatively unscathed — and there are even fewer who can say that they’ve done so without the aid of magic. Rogue troll encounters are the kind of things that old-timers swear up and down they’ve had when they’re trying to swindle a free drink or two out of other patrons at the pubs they haunt. The aggressive tunneling measures put into place by the Council a few centuries back meant that the beasts were trapped in the most desolate of cave systems in the underground, and there were young fairies alive today who had gone their entire lives without having seen a living troll. 

Trolls were slowly becoming a relic of an era gone by, and it was unlikely that anyone would miss them beyond the tunnel scouts who were in charge of making sure they didn’t get too close to Haven. It reminded Holly of a bedtime story about a knight that her father used to tell her. According to the tale, after the knight killed the last living dragon, he fell to his knees, wracked with grief. A young boy broke away from the crowd that had gathered to watch the battle, tapping on the dented, old armor of the fighter. When the boy asked if the knight was alright, the knight responded by slapping away his hand. 

“No,” the knight would say, and Holly’s father would always put on a gruff voice when delivering these lines. “Don’t you see? There’s no need for me anymore.”

Holly knew the story was supposed to have a deeper meaning, but she couldn’t help but feel it was a bit silly. The dragons in fairytales were pure forces of nature; they bulldozed everything in their path, devoid of reason. Was there anything poetic in their destruction? She didn’t think so — and even if there was, symbols mattered far less than the lives the knight had saved by protecting his people.

And so she didn’t hesitate.

The restaurant around her was in flames, with the candles that had once rested pleasantly on top of white tablecloths rolling aimlessly about the floor. Desperately, she twisted and turned, the unforgiving grip of the troll ripping at her suit’s protective covering and making it difficult to maneuver. 

It leaned its head back and roared, the hot, foul stench of its breath managing to worm its way past the filter of her helmet.

Her head swam.

On some biological level, she could feel her body trying and failing to spark her magic — it was like reflexively trying to blink after getting something in your eyes, only to discover your eyelids had disappeared. 

Her heart jumped into her throat, and her vision clouded with speckles of darkness. The troll’s claws seemed to press against her more insistently, and the painful sensation scrambled her thoughts even more. As she wriggled an arm free from its position pressed up against her side, she batted at the creature, trying to keep it from biting at her with its teeth.

Dimly, she heard the sound of her helmet beeping at her. Apparently, the troll heard the sound too, as it paused, sniffing her with curiosity.

“Your battery is low,” the tinny voice of Lilli Frond chirped over the loudspeaker. “Functionality may be impaired until charging commences.”

Please don’t let me die having Frond’s voice be the last thing I ever hear, Holly pleaded internally. Gods, that would be terrible.

An exposed wire on her helmet sparked, and the troll flinched, its thin pupils dilating. A low growl began to form in the base of its throat.

Holly went still.

Carefully, she reached for the side of her helmet.

The troll tightened its grip, issuing a warning snarl.

“Shh,” Holly whispered, trying to keep the hysteria out of her voice. “Easy, big fella.”

She knew that the beast couldn’t understand her words, but it seemed momentarily soothed by her tone. Slowly, she continued to move for the set of buttons near her visor, not breaking eye contact with the troll. Her fingers found purchase against the largest switch the helmet was fitted with, and she jammed it repeatedly.

A low hum sounded from her suit, and the troll cocked its head, curious.

Suddenly, the world went white.

Unfiltered, intense light erupted from the headlight fitted onto her helmet.

The troll howled, falling to the ground in confusion and pain. In its stunned state, its grip loosed, and Holly managed to writhe free before it took her with it down to the ground.

She heaved, wresting the helmet from her head and gulping down mouthfuls of air. Her ribs ached from being held by the troll, and she wished for the thousandth time that evening that she’d been more proactive about completing the ritual.

Holly winced.

The ritual.

Her sense of doom mounting, she turned to look at the wreckage of the restaurant. Looking back at her were dozens of scared, silent humans.

She held up her hands placatingly. With what little residual magic she had, she was unsure whether she’d even be able to communicate with the startled crowd.

_ “Per favore, guardate,” _ she said, the words falling awkwardly from her tongue. _ Please, look _.

The room flashed white for the second time that night.

* * *

The night was cool. The spot by the riverbank by which Butler and Artemis were hiding was silent, with the birds having let out their last calls with the setting of the sun. The sky was clear, and a full moon shone down upon the water nearby, creating swirling patterns of light that stretched and deformed with the ripples of the current. They were a five-minute walk from the car, and Butler briefly wondered how much longer they would remain out tonight.

It was nearly midnight, and there was no sign of any sort of supernatural visitor.

The two sat in silence, and Butler could almost feel Artemis shivering next to him. They’d been waiting by the river for long enough that the chill had pierced the warmth provided by the jacket he wore and sunk into his bones, unrelenting. 

Were it not for Ho Chi Minh, Butler thought, tightening his grips on the binoculars he held in his hands, he would have forced Artemis to get back into the car by now. These past few months had been a frenetic escalation of the fantastic — first it was the strange photos, then it was the creature in Vietnam. He could hardly fathom what would come next. Briefly, he was struck by the image of a tiny, winged figure alighting upon his binoculars, glowing with the same light as the illuminated river water.

Shaking his head, he continued to watch the oak by the riverbank. Artemis had said that their fairy would be drawn to the crossroads of flowing water and an ancient tree.

Butler fought the urge to shoot his charge a glance.

“Last night, I caught an interesting special on RTÉ,” he said lightly, keeping his voice quiet.

In the darkness, Artemis frowned. “I thought you didn’t like television.”

“I don’t usually,” Butler admitted, pleased he’d managed to entice Artemis into small talk. “But I was too tired to read, so I thought I might as well.”

“Ah,” Artemis said, nodding absentmindedly.

Butler hummed in agreement. “Have you ever heard of the Voynich Manuscript?” he asked suddenly, and Artemis tensed.

“The… Voynich Manuscript?”

“Yes. They had a special on it — it seemed like something you might find interesting.”

“Perhaps,” Artemis agreed reluctantly, shifting back to look at the river.

“Seems like they should be farther along in decoding it by now,” Butler noted, tone neutral as he fiddled with the settings on his binoculars. “I mean, it’s written left-to-right and has pictures — the book we picked up in Vietnam is much more distinct from modern languages, and you cracked that fairly quickly.”

“Maybe I’ll offer my services to Yale University after we rescue my father,” Artemis quipped, and Butler snorted.

In the distance, a diminutive figure landed upon the riverbank, barely disturbing what leaves remained on the branches of the oak as her mechanical wings powered down with a whisper. 

* * *

Neither Artemis nor Butler spoke during the car ride back to the manor.

* * *

When a prison officer came to Mulch’s cell with a scowl on his face, Mulch was delighted. In general, when figures with authority approached him with expressions that made it seem like they’d prefer to be gargling nails and reciting the alphabet backward, good things were in store for Mulch.

Mulch sauntered up to the barrier that separated him from the officer, grinning ear to ear.

“Barrow,” he greeted the sprite jovially. “How are you on this fine day?”

The officer shot him a dirty look, moving to punch in the code that would turn off the force field that kept Mulch from leaving the jail. 

Barrow had very little power within the prison, a fact made all the worse when one considered that he hadn’t even wanted to work there in the first place; he’d wanted to be part of LEPrecon, but he hadn’t managed to cut it in the academy. As such, it was easy to goad Barrow into petty squabbles, as every time he was reminded of what little power his position afforded him, he would lash out with impotent anger and frustration. It was all such a perfect cocktail of Freudian and pathetic, and Mulch found Barrow perfectly hilarious.

In another life, Mulch mused, I would have made a good psychoanalyst.

The number pad next to his cell lit up green, and the force field flickered out.

“Root wants to see you,” Barrow grumbled, reaching for the cuffs on his belt. “Says it’s urgent.”

“Maybe he wants to offer me a job,” Mulch said wistfully. 

He remembered all too late that the ride to LEP headquarters wouldn’t be a short one when Barrow tightened the cuffs a few notches too snug. 

* * *

The first thing that Holly noticed as she began to wake was that she felt like death warmed over. Her head pounded, and her dry tongue felt gangly and useless sitting in her mouth. It reminded her of a hangover, almost.

A jolt of panic hit her.

She’d slept through her alarm after a night out. She couldn’t be late into the office, especially not after she’d royally screwed over the Italy mission —

Another wave of nausea hit her, and her train of thought was derailed.

She stretched, but the motion was cut off. Groaning, Holly moved to rub her shoulder, expecting to feel the tingling sensation associated with being unable to move a limb after sleeping on it improperly.

“You should drink some water,” a clipped voice said, and Holly made a face, the bridge of her nose wrinkling slightly. Whoever it was, they weren’t speaking Gnommish, and it was giving her a headache.

“English?” she struggled to get out, blinking the sleep out of her eyes. “Why’re you—”

Her eyes snapped open.

_ “D’Arvit,” _ she cursed, wildly reaching for something — anything — to grab to defend herself with.

“You’ll injure yourself if you continue doing that,” the voice spoke again, and Holly shot up, pushing herself up against the edge of the bed to gain as much distance from her captor as the cuff around her right wrist would allow.

As her vision adjusted, her gaze fell upon the small figure sitting across from her in a chair.

Breathing heavily, she forced herself to look into his face.

In the reflection of his sunglasses, her distorted expression stared back at her.

“Captain Short,” the human said, and an anxious laugh bubbled up in Holly’s throat. He paused, thrown by her reaction before realization dawned on him.

He tapped his chest. “You have a nametag.”

She glanced down at her uniform, the shine on the metallic tag emblazoned with her name winking up at her mockingly. Angrily, she covered it, and the human sighed.

“Your name is hardly classified information. If it makes you feel better, I’ll offer you my own: Artemis.”

Still, Holly refused to move her hand away from her uniform.

It took a moment before the enormity of what he’d said hit her.

“You read my nametag?” she questioned, a hard edge seeping into her tone.

“I do hope I’m not mangling your name.” He smiled. “As you might be able to tell, it’s not my native language.”

Her mouth snapped shut. Silently, she stared at him, analyzing his features. Holly wasn’t that familiar with human appearances, but he seemed young — which made it even more difficult to tell if he was small for a human or not. Nothing about his face seemed distinctly fae enough to point to him being the result of some strange union between a fairy and a human. Still…

“Human?” she asked, the question rolling off her tongue naturally in Gnommish.

The boy — Artemis — started, his eyebrows knitting together in thought.

“The translation of that word —‘man of the mud’ — refers to humans, yes?” he ventured, and she scoffed.

Taking her reaction as confirmation, he nodded. “I’m afraid my ability to understand your spoken tongue leaves something to be desired. But to answer your question, yes, I am human.”

Initial fear morphing into wariness, Holly tried to collect her thoughts. She needed to remember how she’d ended up in this… mess.

Artemis must have sensed her scrutiny, as he crossed his arms, waiting for her to speak.

“What do you want?” Holly finally said.

“Gold,” he replied, looking as if she’d asked the most pointless question in the world.

“I’m going to have to disappoint, then. I left my pot of gold back at the end of the rainbow.”

Artemis fixed her with a withering expression. “I know very well that that is the stuff of fairytales.”

He fell silent for a moment, thinking.

“You told me that yourself, after all. Or do you not remember?” he said, curiosity lacing his tone. “I could have sworn we matched your weight to the correct dosage of sodium thiopental.”

Her face went slack. “What?”

“What is sodium thiopental, or are you expressing contempt at my methods?”

She shook her head. “No, I’ve never heard of — I’m assuming it’s some horrible… human-made _ thing _.”

“It’s a central nervous system depressant. If your people have discovered it, they likely use the drug in a surgical setting as a general anesthetic. Although, that’s operating under the assumption that fairies are on the whole more inclined towards a strict ethical philosophy than humanity, and I loathe universalizing moral hypotheses.” He practically bared his teeth as he grinned. “Thiopental falls under the umbrella of a series of psychoactive drugs colloquially referred to as ‘truth serums’”.

Holly blanched. “Shut up.”

He shrugged. “To put it in a turn of phrase your police force might use, you ‘sang like a bird’.”

She gawped at him in disgust, unable to form a coherent string of words to spit back at him.

He rose from his seat, dusting off non-existent flecks of dirt from his immaculately pressed slacks.

“I thought it might be helpful to make you aware of… the scope of things before we’re caught up in the fervor of the negotiations,” he disclosed, expression almost conspiratorial. “It’ll likely be too chaotic for me to find time to speak to you again before this is all over.”

Holly jutted out her chin, defiant. “You have no idea what you’re in for, human.”

Moving towards the door, he shot her a look over his shoulder. “I could say the same to you.”

He paused. “Or, rather, I would say, ‘you have no idea what you’re in for, fairy’, as you’re not exactly human. Or would you prefer ‘elf’? I don’t think we covered primary cultural modes of identification during your interrogation.”

“Go to hell,” she fumed, turning away from the door so as to ignore him.

The room went silent, and Holly had to resist the urge to see if the boy looked back one more time before closing the door, leaving her all alone in the tiny room. 

* * *

Foaly coughed pointedly, waving a hand to clear the air of some of the noxious fumes from Root’s cigars. On a normal day, the commander would puff on one or two of the disgusting things over the course of his shift, but the stress of the fiasco with Holly had led the elf to inhale half a pack of his smokes in under an hour. Foaly’s machines detested the smog that was rapidly accruing in the office, and Foaly wasn’t exactly fond of the smell, either. 

Root hovered behind him, practically buzzing with nervous energy.

“Well?” the commander grunted, frustrated.

Foaly sucked on his teeth, his tail flicking back and forth as he tapped away at his computer.

“I still think pulling Diggums was a bad idea,” he sighed.

Root harrumphed, spewing out more smoke through the empty space between his teeth and his cigar.

“If Briar weren’t being such an arse, I wouldn’t have even needed to drag the dwarf’s sorry behind out of prison,” Root said, irritated.

Foaly rolled his eyes. _ Briar _. What a shared military service prevented Root from seeing, Foaly noted silently, was that Cudgeon was the kind of man who would sell his mother down the river for another accolade to pin on his lapels.

Finally, a blip lit up the screen in front of the two men. The computer Foaly was using was old, but all of the LEP’s decent hardware had been commandeered by Cudgeon for the man’s own pool of techies. For the subterfuge they were engaging in with Diggums, he would have to make do with the veritable dinosaur of a machine Root had shoved at him an hour ago.

The screen itself was black with streaks of glowing, pixilated lines of green populating the screen. As the blip that represented Diggums moved, more illuminated pixels would form on the screen — the dwarf was equipped with an almost defunct radar that served to slowly map out his trajectory towards the manor as he moved. It wasn’t a perfect method, as the system would occasionally get confused when Diggums hit a rock and had to retrace his path to forge a new tunnel around the obstacle, but it was the best they had.

Foaly fiddled with a few dials and repositioned the antennae of the machine, hissing when it spat out a few sparks. Forcing himself to not reprimand Root for failing to grab him better equipment, he looked back at the screen, watching Diggums’ progress.

This entire catastrophe was his worst fears made manifest — the idea that the privacy of the People had been compromised and the offending humans were well-equipped enough to go toe-to-toe with the fairy technology was beyond anything the LEP had prepared for, regardless of Foaly’s persistent warnings.

Despite this, he found it hard to fixate on the long-term implications of what the existence of humans like Fowl could bring to Haven’s doorstep.

He just wanted to bring his friend back home.

* * *

It would have been an inordinately _ stupid _ idea to risk accidentally killing a captured fairy with experimental psychotropics, Artemis thought, disposition sour. The ease with which his bluff had convinced Captain Short didn’t sit right with him.

He was unsure of whether it made him more uncomfortable to think she’d believed his lie because she thought him to be reckless or because she thought him to be heartless.

He grimaced. 

How neurotic to be offended about someone’s perception of you when you’d kidnapped her. It was more than logical for the captain to assume the worst of him, particularly considering that underestimating him could mean the difference between interspecies war and continued peace.

Artemis was so lost in his thoughts that at first, it didn’t even strike him as odd that his mother’s bedroom door was ajar.

The door swung further open and out stepped Juliet, looking uneasy.

Artemis paused midstride, startled.

Juliet frowned, closing the door after her.

Brow furrowing, Artemis took a step closer. “I—”

“She won’t wake up,” Juliet said, eyes narrowing. 

Artemis paled. “What?”

He quickly moved to meet her, but Juliet barred the way, looking as domineering as her brother for perhaps the first time in all the years Artemis had known her.

Juliet crossed her arms. “If her pulse wasn’t so… normal, I would have thought she’d died. I’ve been shaking her for the past ten minutes — nothing.”

At the mention of his mother’s pulse being stable, Artemis felt almost dizzy from relief. She was fine. She was alive. But why…?

“What did you do?” she pressed, and Artemis’ mouth shuttered open and closed.

“She’s not supposed to be… like that,” Artemis said after a moment, unable to fully address what lay beyond the door.

“Tell me, Juliet,” he began slowly, holding out his hands as a gesture of peace. “Have you tried to rest recently?” 

“You think falling asleep is how we’ll beat this?” Juliet said incredulously. “What, they’ll see us passed out and decide it would be playing dirty to attack us?”

Annoyed, Artemis shook his head. “Obviously not. Don’t be obtuse.”

Juliet huffed. “Fine. I’ll play along. Yes, I’ve tried to take a nap. Tried to do it like, an hour ago. Didn’t work.”

Artemis nodded encouragingly. “It’s the nature of the time-stop. Whatever your state of consciousness going in, that’s how you stay. You can neither wake up nor fall asleep. You must have noticed the fatigue in your bones these last few hours, yet your mind would not let you sleep. So if one can somehow—”

“Your mum seems to be getting plenty of rest right now,” Juliet interjected, leaning against the doorframe. “But I’m so glad you found out that medicine can win out over magic. I’m sure our fairy friends would be willing to agree to your terms in exchange for the results of this experiment, truly.”

She moved closer to him, and he watched her warily.

“What’s your plan B?” she asked, and Artemis winced.

Juliet raised an eyebrow at that. “I know you have one — just because you clearly expected the sleeping meds thing to pan out doesn’t mean that you don’t have a backup plan.”

“Are you going to tell Butler about my mother?” Artemis asked, deflecting.

“No,” Juliet said. “Because here’s the thing about you, Artemis: you’re good at plans, but you’re terrible with people.”

She waited for a moment, daring Artemis to protest. When he said nothing, she continued, pleased. 

“I think you’re going to beat the fairies at their own game. I don’t think they really get what they’re up against. They don’t understand how many steps ahead you are right now, and I don’t think they’ll wise up until it’s too late for them to do anything,” she decided, chewing the inside of her lip slightly in thought. “So I know you’re going to win — I’m not worried about that.”

Artemis knew that her words weren’t intended as a compliment.

“It’s the ‘how’ that I don’t really want to think about,” she sighed. “And I think you know why.”

“I’m not going to let you or Butler be harmed.” 

“I mean, I think that kind of promise is based on your definition of what us being ‘harmed’ is,” Juliet argued. “I don’t want more weird word games around what you are and aren’t going to do — I want in.”

He screwed up his face, and Juliet’s expression darkened.

“I want to know what the plan is, what the stakes are, and what you think the fairies are going to try,” she listed, ticking off a finger for each demand.

Before Artemis could protest, she held up a hand. 

“Either you let me in on what your plan is,” she emphasized. “Or I tell Butler. About _ everything _, Arty.”

He let out a bark of a laugh, and she shrugged. 

“You’re okay with that? I don’t exactly think my brother would find the whole magic thing that funny.”

She looked at him pointedly, continuing. “And I’m not talking about the kind the fairies have.”

They stood there in silence for a moment, the tension hanging heavy in the air.

“You like chess, right?” Juliet confirmed, allowing a small smile to worm its way onto her face. “I think you’d call that ‘checkmate’.” 

After a moment, Artemis smiled back at her, expression rueful. “I think I would call that checkmate, Juliet.”

“And?” she prompted.

“I’ll tell you my plan,” he promised. “Soon.”

“Not soon. Now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the inclusion of the paradise lost quote serves two functions. First, this particular section is from Satan's perspective, and the selected lines 'translate' to him bemoaning the fact that he knows he could achieve his former state of glory were he to repent, yet his prideful nature makes such an option unavailable to him (as that is what led to his fall in the first place: "boasting I could subdue/ Th' Omnipotent"); despite being king of hell, the only thing his is "Supream/In misery", and he can never voice this anguish at being responsible for his own damnation due to his pride. Essentially, Artemis is going down a path of ruin — but relying solely on himself, retreating inward, is what would be the path of damnation he chooses for himself (think of how doing so is what sends him down a path of paranoia in book 7, regardless of the... unrealistic nature of the Atlantic complex as a mental illness). This fanfic kind of pushes and pulls at those tendencies that were already latent in his character, and whether he chooses to rely on interpersonal connection or not is a big driver in his character development here. Also, I find it fascinating that the reason that many of Milton's contemporaries pushed back on this piece of his work was because they found he gave the most interesting parts to Satan's portions; William Blake wrote that, "The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it." If anything, the use of charismatic, electric writing when describing pure evil reflects how many may be seduced into wrongdoing in the first place, whereas the banality of goodness in turn reflects that it is from moral conviction, not the bells and whistles, that attracts one to good. However, I should admit that I am moreso a student of literature than I am of religion, so my analysis of the text and the context around it is likely different than that of someone who is deeply Christian. C'est la vie! 
> 
> The second reason is such: Colfer states that canonically, Artemis can type Paradise Lost in less than twenty minutes. This would give him the minimum typing speed of 7525 words per minute; it is physically impossible for him to have this ability. I find this piece of lore HILARIOUS and think about it on the reg'.
> 
> as always, I hope that the "Juliet knowing about magic" reveal was decently?? foreshadowed. Her dialogue when Artemis returned after the Fowl Star sank and Butler was explaining the accident to Angeline was intended as a hint — they're close enough in age that I would imagine he spent some of his time with her when he was at home, and he accidentally let something slip. I very much headcanon their dynamic as being akin to close family friends/estranged siblings, as I think Butler's insistence on her having a normal childhood (while still training her) led to an ambiguity in the line between Butler versus Fowl in her relationship to Artemis — however, I could see her realization of the obligations that come with her family legacy to sour their friendship for a brief period of time. 
> 
> I hope that end of semester work is going well for everyone, and I wish you all the best! As always, reviews and kudos are deeply appreciated, but if that's not something you feel comfortable with, then I shall simply see you next chapter!


	11. Chapter 11

“Aristotle writes of households in which terrible deeds occur.” 

> “Murder Among Friends: Violation of _ Philia _ in Greek Tragedy” Elizabeth S. Belfiore p.5

“In one of the earliest forms of a question that echoes through the millennia of the tragic tradition, they ask, ‘What can wash off the blood once spilled upon the ground?’. The persons of many a tragic story are heavily invested in this prophylactic attempt to prevent the return of the angry dead, who have already been mistreated in life but are often furthermore mistreated in death, as was the corpse of Polyneices in Antigone… 

There are many ways in which the dead return. Sometimes they are hazy specters as in Hamlet… Sometimes they are thought to be dead but are not really dead. Oedipus, after all, had been meant to be exposed as a baby on Mount Cithaeron. As far as his parents knew, he was dead … Sometimes the dead return in their genetic replicas, their descendants. And sometimes they return in spectacular apparitions.”

> “The Death of Tragedy and the Birth of the Gothic” John D. Lyons p.22-3.

* * *

Mulch crept through the hallway, trying his best to remain quiet.

It felt like he’d been wandering through the manor for hours, even if he knew that wasn’t possible. The plans Foaly had sent him had been complete garbage, as he’d not-so-elegantly discovered when he’d dug his way into the wine cellar. He’d yelled at the centaur over his comms for that — he’d been expecting to hit another limestone deposit based on the LEP’s DigiMap of the manor. From there, Mulch had unsuccessfully tried to make his way towards the inhabited parts of the manor, but he’d only managed to get lost down the older wings of the building — the parts that, thankfully, Fowl hadn’t installed cameras in.

Mulch peered around the corner, once again expecting to see some sign of the humans that lived here. Foaly, who had been talking his ear off earlier, had stopped beeping him over the communication link a few hallways back.

He likely was still sore about Mulch’s comments surrounding the DigiMap.

Despite the iris-cam returning a negative for surveillance devices in the hallway, Mulch kept to the shadows as he slunk down the corridor. He shot a glance over his shoulder, listening for movement.

Nothing.

He turned, continuing forward.

Mulch only took a few steps before he paused, brow furrowing. He looked behind himself once more, then looked forward.

“Foaly,” he muttered. “Foaly, can you replay the last thirty seconds of cam footage?”

He received no response.

“For the love of Frond, I get it, you prick. I’m sorry about the ‘overpaid techie’ comment. Aren’t you and Short friends? Just… grow up for a second and tell me where I’m headed,” he hissed, pressing himself up against the wall as he scanned his surroundings.

There wasn’t even static — just silence.

Nervously, Mulch licked his lips, inching forward. His hand stayed against the wall.

He wasn’t sure how, but the hallway ahead of him was different than the one he’d stumbled into a moment ago.

One of the doors ahead rattled violently, and Mulch almost jumped out of his skin at the clamor.

The noise paused, as though whatever was behind the door had heard Mulch.

Just as suddenly, the banging returned, this time even louder than before.

“Fowl,” a voice fumed from behind the mahogany door, muffled by the wood. “Get.” _ Bang. _ “Back.” _ Bang. _ “Here.” _ Bang. _

Mulch almost couldn’t believe his ears. 

_ “Holly?” _

The banging cut off. “Mulch?”

He laughed, relief bubbling up inside him. “How’d you get yourself into this one, Short?”

There was one final kick to the door.

Mulch scrambled to pick the lock on the door. “Okay, okay! Calm down!”

It barely took him a minute to work the door open, and Holly shot out from it. In one swift motion, she grabbed him by the collar.

“How’d you get in here?”

He squawked, batting at her grip. “I dunno — ease up!”

Her grip loosened, and he wriggled free. “What?”

“The house, it’s—” he gnashed his teeth, frustrated that the right words weren’t coming to him. “It’s wrong.”

“Do you mean security is tight?”

Mulch snorted. “I’ve seen nursing homes with tighter security.”

By now, Short’s patience with him seemed to be waning. “Look, Mulch, I’m not asking you to fight his bodyguard—”

“Bodyguard?” Mulch interrupted. “I haven’t seen anyone in this joint.”

She pursed her lips, displeasure seeping onto her face. “Okay. Fine.”

“I’m not lying, Short.”

Holly fixed him with a look, and although Mulch had no idea what she was accusing him of, he felt defensiveness wrap itself around his gut like a vise. 

“Thanks for letting me out, Mulch. You don’t have to make yourself look like an idiot — I’ll make sure to tell Root I ‘lost track of you’ in a scuffle with Fowl’s people.”

She stalked off, leaving him to gawp after her like a fish.

He waited, considering his options.

“Holly,” he tried, calling to her.

Staying close to the wall as he moved, Mulch turned the corner she’d rounded a moment ago. Of all the times for someone to assume the worst of him, it was one of the rare occasions on which he was actually innocent.

The corridor was empty.

Mulch stared, the feeling of uneasiness from earlier intensifying.

“Short?” he tried again, not expecting a response.

Cursing, he turned back down the hall through which he’d come. For all he cared at this point, Holly could waltz straight back into the clutches of the humans in the manor. He’d done his job — he’d done more than what Foaly had asked, in fact, having freed Holly completely without guidance.

Mulch was a free man now, and he was going to enjoy his freedom by making sure he got to fully enjoy it.

As far away from Fowl as possible, preferably.

* * *

Holly wasn’t sure if she felt betrayed at the LEP having sent in a troll, per se. Clearly they were trying to exhaust all courses of action. That much was clear after they’d sent in _ Diggums _. Oddly, she hoped that the information surrounding who had approved the troll remained out of reach, as she didn’t think she could take knowing who voted in favor of trying to get rid of this whole mess by taking her out of the picture, too.

Holly watched as Butler dabbed at his split lip with a towel, lost in thought.

“What was that thing?” he finally asked, setting the towel down.

“A troll,” she enunciated slowly, throwing the towel back at him. “They sent a troll in here to kill you, human.”

He sighed, catching the towel before it could hit him. “It would have killed you, too, if you hadn’t healed me. Thank you, by the way — even if you only did so to save yourself.”

“My pleasure.”

Breathless, Juliet appeared in the doorway. Although her mouth was open to say something to her brother, her eyes widened when she saw Holly. Unsure, her gaze flicked back to Butler, waiting for him to speak.

“There was an incident,” he explained, moving so that his body was between Holly and Juliet. Despite this, Juliet peered around him, curious about Holly.

“I’m not going to attack her,” Holly snapped.

Quickly losing interest in Holly, Juliet’s gaze returned to her brother. “They just brought it. Artemis told me to get you.”

Apparently Butler was taking too long to react, because Juliet threw up her hands, insistent.

“The gold, Butler! Artemis needs you to come _ now _.”

Although she’d expected to be barred from following, Holly joined the Butlers as they crowded around the hover-trolley parked in the lobby. As expected, Artemis was waiting by the cart.

The LEP had paid. In full.

Transfixed, Holly drank in the sight of the dozens and dozens of gold bars stacked upon each other. Though it would have been impossible in this light, a warm glow seemed to spill out over the trolley’s lip. She shook her head, forcing herself to focus.

“I believe that this is your cue to leave, Captain,” Artemis announced. “Unless, of course, you plan to fight me and take the gold back to your people.”

He cocked his head. “That, or you’ve perhaps found our hospitality to be satisfactory, and are thus loath to leave so soon.”

“One of these days you’re going to run into a problem you can’t throw your bodyguard in front of,” she bristled, and she noticed Butler tense next to his young charge. “And I just hope that I’m there when it happens.”

“If all things go according to your commander’s plan, then I’m afraid you’ll never have the chance,” Artemis said mildly. “But I’m glad to hear your vote of confidence for myself and my associates.”

She snorted at that, and Artemis’ good mood dampened for the first time since the trolley had deposited the tonne of gold at the manor’s doorstep.

“‘Associates’,” she imitated him. “As if this is business. How _ human _ of you.”

"It’s for his father,” Butler said under his breath, moving to wheel the trolley further into the house. He almost seemed sheepish.

Artemis gave his bodyguard a reproachful glance, but he refrained from commenting.

“Father?” Holly pressed.

“We have the gold,” Juliet said pointedly. “I think you should… y’know.”

“Not so confident your boss can beat the bio-bomb?” Holly asked, voice dripping with fake incredulity.

At that, Juliet frowned. Moving to trail off after her brother, she turned away, refusing to let Holly see her face.

Only Holly and Artemis remained in the lobby.

“I—” Holly began, cursing herself for feeling guilty. “I’d… bet that I could convince the LEP — my officers, that is — to mindwipe you instead of blue-rinsing the manor,” she offered, trying to be nonchalant.

The words sounded unconvincing even to her own ears.

She paused briefly, at war with herself. “I have magic.”

For some reason, that seemed to amuse Artemis.

“You do? I never would have been able to guess, Captain,” he drawled.

“I’m not asking for you, Fowl,” Holly snapped. “I’m asking for your ‘associates’.”

She met the gaze of her former captor, and Holly steeled her gaze. She couldn’t see his eyes beyond the wall created by the opaque sunglasses he wore, and she had no idea whether he was staring back.

“You made the People look like idiots.” Holly shrugged. “Right now, getting the gold back is just as important as getting me back. For the next few years, everyone’s taxes are going to be higher to account for the money spent on both the rescue mission and the ransom — that’s just as likely to cause blowback as you kidnapping me.”

A muscle tensed in Artemis’ jaw.

“I have full faith in my plans,” he said coolly. “But I appreciate your goodwill.”

“Look,” Holly hissed, lowering her voice so that the Butlers wouldn’t hear. “We can trade for it. I won’t tell my bosses that I’m doing you a favor, and we’ll both walk away from this promising to never talk about the past 24 hours ever again.”

“Say I take you up on this offer. What do you have to exchange that is equivalent in worth to gold?”

“Magic,” Holly repeated slowly, not understanding his hesitance.

“Yes, I know,” Artemis responded, annoyed. “But what can your ‘magic’ do for me?”

“Er,” she faltered.

Of course Fowl would be the first human completely unfazed by the glamour of winning a miracle. 

He waited, crossing his arms.

“Good fortune?” Holly tried. “I can make it so your luck will be good for years to come.”

“Pass.” Artemis grinned, the expression lacking any real warmth. “I don’t put much faith in luck.”

“Good health, then?”

Artemis seemed intrigued at that. “Good health?”

“Yeah,” she said encouragingly. “I can make sure the health of everyone in the house is generally good — any chronic aches and pains will have disappeared by tomorrow with a quick charm of the manor.”

He considered this.

“When you say good health,” Artemis ventured. “Do you mean physical health exclusively? Or does ‘good health’ also encompass mental health?”

“Sure.” Holly waved him off. “Now, are you willing to trade or not?”

“I refuse to give you back the entire sum of gold,” Artemis warned.

“Fine,” she consented, gritting her teeth. “I want 75% of it.”

He looked offended. “25%.”

“25%?” She boggled at him. “Are you insane? No. 60%.”

“I’ll give you half,” Artemis proposed. “Nothing more.”

She studied him, and he tilted his head, challenging her.

“Deal, human. Half.”

* * *

What little exhilaration that had come with the arrival of the gold dissipated with Holly’s departure.

The tension in the kitchen was stifling. It was impossible to tell what the People were doing behind the walls of their temporary encampment on the manor’s lawn. Based on Artemis’ calculations, the fairies still had between thirty minutes to an hour left in the time-stop. He’d played his final move in this game, and all that was left was for the People to make their own. If he were in their position, he would wait to send out the bio-bomb, too, for when this affair was truly over, there would be nothing left to do — win or lose. This last-minute attempt at psychological warfare was understandable, as it was perhaps the only form of catharsis the People could hope to achieve.

It was said that “patience is the most valuable trait of the endgame player,” and in the end, the fairies were welcome to be as vindictive in their loss as they pleased — it would not change the outcome of tonight.

Artemis paused in his train of thought. Chess metaphors were admittedly somewhat banal.

He had time to figure out how to best rephrase his reflections on the Fowl Manor siege. With some distance from the business, he was sure the conversation that was to be had with Butler would be illuminating. His bodyguard was ex-military, and Butler’s perspective would undoubtedly be interesting.

For now, though, Artemis kept his thoughts on the finer details of the night’s success to himself.

Meanwhile, he watched Butler bustle about the kitchen.

Surrender was not an option. If Artemis even allowed himself to consider the possibility of weakness, of failure — if the specter of doubt crept into the borderlands of his thoughts and dug its claws into his mind — he would be unable to realize the final step in his plans. Since the moment the time-stop descended upon the manor, Artemis had made endless contingency plans. He had accounted for the possibility that the People would prefer to leave Holly to die rather than to enter hostage negotiations. He had accounted for the possibility that at some point, Butler would refuse to continue holding Holly hostage. Unfortunately, he had correctly accounted for the possibility that medically induced slumber would not be enough to escape the time-stop.

What Artemis had to do now was to go against his own nature. Magic was not scientific; there were no set steps one could take to ensure the uniform replication of results time and time again. Dmitry’s arrogance made sense when one considered that powerful magic was tied to the ability to reject the laws that governed reality. The less one believed in anything other than his own ego, the better.

Artemis cleared his throat, and Butler looked over.

“I want to begin by saying thank you to you both,” Artemis said. It would be the only truth he’d utter before the night ended, and he sincerely wanted to express the sentiment.

Butler said nothing, aware that the compliment was only the overture to what Artemis actually wanted to say.

“I propose a toast,” Artemis continued. Neither of the Butler siblings moved.

Moving to the cabinets, Artemis pretended to pore over the array of glasses. Selecting the three champagne flutes he’d decided on, he delicately placed them on the marble countertop of the bar.

“I don’t think Mother would mind, considering the circumstances,” he added, injecting a note of diffidence into his words. As though after all he’d orchestrated, he still retained a sense of bashfulness at the idea of asking for a sip of alcohol.

By now, both Juliet and Butler had gathered by the serving bar where Artemis stood. Carefully, he moved one of the glasses, sliding it across the smooth stone of the countertop, resting it in front of Butler. Again, slowly, he repeated the process with Juliet’s glass.

Butler’s stare was inscrutable.

Artemis removed his sunglasses and pocketed them within his suit jacket in one clean motion. Meeting Butler’s gaze, he schooled his features to seem open, to seem guileless.

“You may pour, if you wish, Butler,” Artemis suggested.

“Do you have your eye on any particular year?”

Artemis quirked his head, indifferent. “I’ve only had alcohol at Christmas services, so I hardly have had the opportunity to cultivate my own preferences. You’re welcome to select for us.”

Surprise briefly flitted across Butler’s face. Getting to both choose and pour the bottle of champagne took the wind somewhat out of his sails.

Not deliberating over his choice, Butler made quick work of filling each of the flutes Artemis had placed on the bar. Perhaps Artemis should have been offended that Butler assumed he’d be so obvious in tampering with their drinks, but he couldn’t find the energy, ultimately.

Juliet reached for her glass first, elbowing her brother good-naturedly.

“Relax — you barely poured more than a few sips. I don’t think anyone is getting sick over a toast,” she teased, and Butler hesitated, fingers ghosting over his own.

Raising his glass, Artemis forced himself to breathe normally, despite his heart hammering away inside his chest.

“To my father’s safe return,” he announced, and Artemis saw Butler’s resolve further weaken.

How strange it was for all three of them to know that Artemis was up to something, yet none would outright address this. Artemis could have ordered Juliet and Butler to drink the sedative-laden champagne. Juliet could have asked her brother to go along with his plan. Butler could have accused Artemis of once again putting their lives in danger.

Juliet took a sip of her champagne.

This was her saying: _ I trust Artemis’ plan _ . _ Drink the champagne and don’t be stubborn — we can deal with the fallout of tonight after we get out of the time-stop. _

Artemis followed suit.

That was him saying: _ I understand the stakes, and I’m risking my own life, too, for a chance at saving us all. _

Butler said nothing, but he rested an arm around Juliet’s shoulder as he drank.

That was him saying: _ Artemis. You’ve nearly gotten us all killed a dozen ways in the past twenty-four hours, and I know that if whatever you’re doing now fails, this is it. It’s for Juliet’s sake alone that I’m going along with this. She doesn’t need her last memory to be of fighting. _

What needed to be said hung in the air, unsaid, and for the first time since the siege began on the manor, the house was peaceful.

Butler slumped forward in his chair. Carefully, Juliet tugged on his arm, guiding him as she tried to maneuver over to the couch. Artemis stepped forward, catching Butler’s other arm to help. Butler didn’t rest any of his weight on Artemis, for which he was glad — Artemis would have hardly been able to support his bodyguard. Still, Artemis told himself he was helping, and the trio finally made it to the sofa. Both Butler and Juliet sank into it, going boneless from exhaustion.

The thin layer of sedatives Artemis had adhered to the inside of the glasses had done its job spectacularly.

As he watched his associates lose themselves to sleep, Artemis felt his thoughts slow. Though the dose he’d laced in his own drink had been less than that in the Butlers’, the tranquilizer had finally gotten a hold of him.

Forcing himself not to fight the drowsiness, Artemis shot one final glance at the window. No change had occurred in the fairy base.

Artemis lowered himself to the ground, resting his back against the side of the couch. After everything, it wouldn’t have been right to sit next to the Butlers. For them to drink the champagne, knowing that Artemis was again leaving them in the dark while asking for their trust, that was enough. He wouldn’t use the escape plan as a way to insinuate himself into such a rare moment of vulnerability.

He exhaled, letting the back of his head bounce slightly against the couch.

* * *

It’s hard to describe the feeling of consciously entering a dream. It’s not like gradually waking up, in that there isn’t a slow awareness of where one is and what is going on, yet neither is it as shocking to the senses as the feeling of suddenly being wrenched awake, startled into alertness. Like so much of the magic Dmitry had shown him, the plane of existence on which Artemis found himself was existence without essence; it was a _ thing _ that could only be described as a _ thing _ because other metaphors and words were unable to properly delimit it through language.

Mentally filing away the details of this experience, Artemis steadied himself, trying to get his bearings. He had a physical presence here, vaguely.

He had to hold onto his goal.

When the bio-bomb was deployed, it would target all living matter — living being the key word. Anything in the house that was dead would be ignored. For example, the Book described how the homes of victims of the bio-bomb, homes largely made of organic material like wood or clay, would remain standing, unharmed.

For as long as he was able, Artemis needed to trick the bodies of those living in Fowl Manor into thinking that they were dead. When he’d realized the sleeping pills weren’t enough to remove someone from the time-stop, he’d panicked. First Mother had merely fallen asleep, then Butler had remained in the manor after being knocked out during the fight against the troll. Though he’d stuck with his original plan of administering sedatives to both himself and the Butlers, he’d needed to pivot. While the idea had initially been the escape plan in and of itself, now it functioned as merely the first step.

With the Butlers asleep, he didn’t have to worry about them accidentally interfering with his plans. In retreating into sleep, Artemis succeeded in burrowing deep within his own mind to hide. Encased in his own magic, Artemis was able to worm his way towards more powerful magic — _ older _ magic. It was as though he had a trap door within him, and he’d finally managed to wrest it open to discover a cavernous hold beyond it, dark and foreboding.

It was hard to refocus oneself without a body to shake or eyes to blink, Artemis realized, mentally swatting away the slithering tendril of magic that prodded at his consciousness.

“My mind is my own,” he thought back at it, tone steely.

All around him, he felt a wave of amusement. It was like being aware that the night sky was laughing at you.

Ignoring it, Artemis went back to his work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry its been a while since an update — things have been a bit difficult on my end. I have the next chapter written and I should have it uploaded soon, once I get over the feeling that the latest chapters have been utter crap in comparison to the first chapter or so, lol. c'est la vie. I hope you all are well, and anyone who can spot the sneaky sarte reference Wins. Sorry this author's note isn't longer — the next one will go more into depth about little bits and pieces here and there.


	12. Chapter 12

“All that was left to us was to wonder: who knows all that is innate to this world, or to any other? Why should there not be something buried deep within appearances, something that wears a mask to hide itself behind the visibility of nature?”

> “Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe” by Thomas Ligotti

“Classical painting used no blue. According to Oswald Spengler, this was because blue–and green–were to the Greeks vaporous, “essentially atmospheric” and “not substantial”, a perspective colour, ethereal as the colour of the heavens, the sea, the shadow of the southern moon, the unactual.”

> “The Primary Colours: Three Essays; ‘Blue’” by Alexander Theroux

* * *

It’s an understatement to say that there are no simple feelings to be had about death. There was a real, palpable  _ fury _ that Holly felt at the violation of being abducted — it was humiliating, it was frightening, and it was almost surreal to think she could be used as a weapon against her people — but still, she felt… something akin to sadness at the sight of the blue-rinse.

The blue light illuminating the windows of the manor cut out, and the room seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief. As the assorted officers and techies began to chatter animatedly, Holly kept her gaze on the house, almost expecting to see movement at the windows.

Shooting her commander a glance, Holly saw that he, too, seemed quiet.

“When is retrieval going in for the gold?” she asked, and Root grunted noncommittally.

“In the next 15 minutes. We don’t have much time left in the time-stop.”

“Standard gear?”

“They’re dead, aren’t they?” Root snorted, reaching into his jacket for a cigar. “Just make sure you have your antirad kit. I don’t trust Foaly’s science as far as I could throw him.”

She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Right.”

The trip to the equipment locker was anticlimactic. The rest of her team was already waiting to descend on the manor, so she was thankfully left alone as she suited up.

Once her blackout gear was properly secured, she briefly let her hand drift to the holster on her side. In response, the Neutrino 2000 hummed, warming up.

A full charge.

She wondered how much extra paperwork she’d have to fill out if she took a few shots at the wall-length family portrait Fowl had up in the lobby. Grimacing, she let her hand fall away from the weapon.

The recon team had already been lined up by Root at the perimeter of the house by the time she joined them. When Trouble spotted her, he opened his mouth as if to say something. However, Root cast a withering look in his direction, and although Trouble seemed reluctant, he remained silent.

Root nodded at her, and Holly joined the line.

“Captain Short is going to be leading us through the house,” he announced. “We’re going in to get the gold, retrieve any evidence Fowl collected on us, and determine how much of a clean-up team we’re going to need. No wandering off.”

Everyone nodded.

“Good.”

Root readied himself, approaching the door with caution. It was open — the LEP liked to send in bio-bombs as discreetly as possible. No blowing doors off their hinges, if it could be avoided.

He took a step. Then another.

Holly inhaled sharply, watching the commander take the final step across the door’s threshold.

Root looked back, and a beat passed.

“We have thirty minutes,” Root barked at the group of fairies in front of him. “Move out.”

One-by-one, Holly and her team meandered inside, taking in their surroundings as they entered the manor.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, and Holly whipped around to see Trouble. She made a face, and he released his hold.

“Grub and I are on evidence duty,” he said under his breath, voice low. “We’ll catch up to you soon, yeah? There’s something we need… something I need to tell you.”

She tried not to roll her eyes. “What, this whole business made you realize you can’t live without me?” she joked, but her tone wasn’t unkind.

He huffed, and Holly felt some of the tension curled around her insides relent.

“ _ No _ ,” he emphasized, still whispering. “It’s about Cudgeon. It’s — look, we’ll talk later.”

From somewhere deeper in the house, she heard Root yell Trouble’s name.

He fixed her with a pointed look and moved to follow after the commander.

For a moment, Holly watched him leave.

The sense of dread from earlier returned.

She knew she was stalling. There was only place Fowl would be — and where he was, the gold was.

It was time to face her captor one last time.

* * *

The kitchen was just how she’d seen it barely an hour ago. She hadn’t noticed this when she’d seen it last, but the room was strangely posh — one of those kitchens designed more for serving drinks and hosting guests than cooking proper meals. The only thing out of place was a series of champagne flutes full of half-drunken alcohol. Beyond that, however, she could see no evidence of Fowl. What was most odd, she noted, was the full trolley of gold parked behind the bar.

Briefly, she considered radioing Root.

Under the artificial lights of the kitchen, the bars of gold seemed to gleam.

She tore her eyes away from the ransom. First she needed to find Fowl — she needed to find the bodies. Then she would call the team. It’s not as though the gold could grow legs and scamper off. She could wait to report its discovery.

There was a door connected to the kitchen, and Holly moved through it, finding herself in the manor’s parlor.

She blinked.

The room looked like patterned velvet had thrown up all over it.

She laughed, surprised, crossing her arms to admire the garishness of it. She could almost imagine the dismay Fowl felt when he thought of the décor in here — it was so… different than the austere fashion that the majority of the manor was styled in.

Taking a step inside, she turned around, looking at her reflection be distorted in the grimy surface of the mirror that hung over the mantelpiece. Across the surface, the room was warped into a kind of Victorian funhouse.

She frowned, examining the image of a strangely colored sofa.

Powering up her wings, she moved closer to the mirror. Using the back of her hand, she wiped off a patch of dust from the mirror. In the stripe she left behind, the couch’s reflection crystalized, and on it, she saw the still forms of her captors.

Holly drew her hand away from the mirror as though she’d been burned.

Gently, she alighted next to the couch. The Butler siblings seemed draped over one another, peaceful as if in slumber, while Fowl was seated cross-legged in front of the couch, using the front as a backrest. All of their eyes were closed.

Holly’s fists clenched.

When her team had entered the manor without so much as a hiccup, that had been evidence enough that Fowl’s plan had failed. Still, she had been able to banish the implications of the People’s easy entry into the house, focusing instead on the task of locating the gold.

Brusquely, she reached for the med-pack around her waist. Rummaging for a bit, she pulled out three pebble-sized sensors. She brought the first up to her face.

“Label: Artemis Fowl II.”

She repeated the command with the second.

“Label: Juliet Butler.”

She brought the final to her mouth.

“Label,” she paused, faltering. “Label: Butler-comma-eldest.”

The surface of each of the sensors lit up blue — they were in standby. Awkwardly, she approached the couch.

Mission protocol required that as much data be collected following an altercation with humans —  _ particularly _ data that were related to human deaths. The devices she held in her hand were the “Doctor-In-Action: Governmental Network 515”, or DIAGN0515, and Koboi Labs had been generous enough to supply the LEP with the tech. Their development was largely engendered by an incident in which a series of LEP officers thought they’d accidentally killed a farmer due to the sloppy destruction of a decommissioned hillfort base. The man had been decidedly  _ not _ dead, and the public began expressing a desire for a way to gather health intel on mudmen in a way that didn’t require something so up close and personal as fumbling about someone’s neck to find a major vein to check. The fact that the little devices were easy to use as evidence in court was a plus, too.

Swallowing a scowl, she placed each sensor on its corresponding human.

“Gather data,” she commanded. Dutifully, the lights on the devices flickered in unison, chirping and whirring as they logged the biometric records.

An ugly red light illuminated her face when the devices finished processing barely a moment later.

“Yeah,  _ I get it _ ,” she said under her breath, annoyed for some reason.

Popping the devices off of Butler and Juliet, she shoved each back into her med-pack. However, when she reached Artemis, she paused. She reached for the device, curling her gloved fingers around the cool metal. For a moment, she imagined his eyes flicking open.

She shuddered, yanking the device off of him and shoving it with the rest.

Even in death, he was creepy as hell.

“I told you that you wouldn’t be able to escape,” she said simply.

In the end, there wasn’t really anything else to say.

* * *

Holly’s comm crackled to life, and she tore her eyes away from the humans.

“Commander?”

She was greeted to the sound of retching and coughing on the other side.

“Get out—”

Another hacking noise.

“— ‘S not dead, Short!”

The comm cut out, and in the distance, Holly could hear the thudding footsteps of her fellow officers making a beeline for the front door.

She pulled her gun from her holster and trained it at Fowl.

He didn’t react.

Obviously, Holly thought with a tinge of hysteria,  _ obviously _ , because he was  _ dead _ .

She kept the gun pointed at him, feeling ever more ridiculous as the seconds ticked by.

He cracked open a single eye.

Holly almost dropped the gun.

Blearily blinking sleep from his eyes, Artemis stretched, humming.

“Oh,” he yawned, eyes struggling to focus on Holly’s Neutrino 2000. “I suppose I never formally retracted your invitation.”

A crash sounded from upstairs, followed by the sound of scurrying. Artemis looked up, eyebrows knitting together in confusion.

“Mother shouldn’t be up yet.”

The front door slammed.

Fighting the urge to follow suit, Holly shook her head.

“Yours?” he asked, surprised. “Well, then. The People don’t waste any time.”

He sat there, ruminating. “Pity. If you’d been only a bit quicker, I do believe you’d have managed in recovering the gold.”

“Looks like you’re forgetting about me again, then. The gold is coming with me.”

He looked up, unamused. “I won, Captain. Your laws are on my side.”

“‘None of your race has permission to enter while I’m alive’,” he continued, a sardonic note worming its way into his voice as he quoted himself from earlier. “That’s what I told your commander.”

Holly snorted, thumbing off the safety of her weapon. “And you were. Dead, that is.”

He uncrossed and recrossed his legs. “I’m not dead now, though, wouldn’t you agree?”

She didn’t respond.

“The terms of engagement were as such: kill me, and you win back the gold. As you can plainly see, I’m alive — thus, your fellow officers were driven out of my home.”

His expression turned sly. “I  _ also _ believe that if my invitation to you still stands, Captain, then my order that you are not to cause harm to either myself or my cohorts stands, too. I apologize if that defeats whatever notion you had of threatening me at gunpoint to give up the gold.”

They sat there for a moment, regarding one another in cool silence.

Artemis closed his eyes, settling back in against the couch. “Go home, Holly Short,” he sighed, sleepy. “It’s over.”

* * *

She stalked out of the house, refusing to look back. At the doorway, she was nearly bowled over by Root, whose face had taken on a hue that was approaching mauve.

“Are you out of your  _ damn mind, _ Short—”

“He never uninvited me,” Holly explained, suddenly exhausted. She held up a hand, letting the sparks dance around her fingertips to show her magic was intact. “The geas doesn’t apply to me.”

Root spluttered, the rant he had been planning dying out. “How…?”

She shrugged, ignoring the way the sensors in her bag weighed her down like stones. “Don’t know.”

Holly made eye contact with Root. “Thank you for coming back for me, Commander.”

Whatever he’d been expecting, it clearly wasn’t that.

“Short,” he began, but she cut him off.

“We need to leave before the time-stop ends,” she stressed, and Root nodded, still looking displeased.

Shoving her hands in her pockets, she walked back over to the encampments, prepared for the veritable fit Foaly was going to throw over her going off comms during the mission. Resisting the urge to shoot one final glance at the manor, she briefly wondered what would become of Fowl. Would he try to come after the People again?

It didn’t matter, not right now.

It was time for her to go home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me start this author's note by apologizing for the last one: i had pulled an allnighter for work and was a little lost in that emotional sauce. Sorry about that! 
> 
> With that out of the way, let me confirm the Sartre reference — "existence without essence". It comes from his quote "existence precedes essence" which means essentially (lol) "being and existing comes before the human meanings and narratives we assign to our existence". If the magical plane is "existence without essence", that means that although it exists, it exists in such a way that it cannot be placed in any current human understanding. That ties into the first quote, the Ligotti quote, as he is probably my favorite cosmic horror author. "Songs of a dead dreamer" has just this... super pretentious and overwrought style that I played off of at various points in this fic (in the first chapter when Artemis falls asleep on the car ride home, basically the entire bits surrounding Dmitry's house and the Council, and then the magical plane in this chapter). 
> 
> The other quote is difficult to explain in terms of why I included it. A fact I find super interesting is that in terms of human languages, we develop the vocabulary to describe the color blue last in the chronology of color-naming. That weird consistency across languages makes the color just have a certain... coolness, I guess? The quote is intended to be a part of the conversation on language, but it also serves as a connection to the blue-rinse.
> 
> I also want to briefly address something that informed why I had the sleeping pills not work — in canon, they don't work. Not consistently, at least. 
> 
> ****
>
>> “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Total accident. I forgot all about the fake finger. There are several precedents, I believe.” “Oh, absolutely. Unfortunately Cudgeon will be unconscious for several hours. By the time he awakens, all the excitement will be over.”
> 
> Colfer, Eoin. Artemis Fowl (p. 247). 
> 
> ****
>
>> Butler rolled the unconscious troll on to an armored trolley, dragging it to the devastated doorway. With a huge heave, he jettisoned the lot into the suspended night.
> 
> Colfer, Eoin. Artemis Fowl (p. 239). 
> 
> ***
>
>> Holly felt the blue tingle of magic scurrying to her various injuries. Thank the gods for acorns. But it was too little too late. The pain was way beyond her threshold. Just before unconsciousness claimed her, Holly’s hand flopped from beneath the tapestry. It landed on Butler’s arm, touching the bare skin. Amazingly, the human wasn’t dead.
> 
> Colfer, Eoin. Artemis Fowl (pp. 230-231). 
> 
> ***  
Holly, Butler, the troll, and Cudgeon are all knocked unconscious (with Cudgeon being knocked out by sedative!) — yet none disappear from the timestop and reappear outside it. Using this, I essentially said that the pills wouldn't work, and built off that. 
> 
> I... also heard that the movie is out? As such, I come bearing content in the form of a fan soundtrack for both the movie and this au.
> 
> **Original canon:**  
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiw6LXRe8xxDHVpHr7hWz5Yelws4PfSYw
> 
> **By the Pricking of my Thumbs au:**  
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/18r5yyFKd3HwsMDIhILI0s?si=xDzZTwn4RDy438GHZ21C2Q
> 
> Thank you to everyone who reviewed thus far, and I look forward to seeing you all in the future chapters!


End file.
